Neriak

As I stumble through the dark, a brilliant indigo light draws me. Having spent months wandering through the forests of Nektulos, and finally emerging into the blazing dry sunlight of the Commonlands, I've gripped the starched mountain pass and hugged the dry pumice to emerge into the forest bowl known as the Darklight. Meandering past pocked craters and river gouges I finally cross the bridge over Innoruk's Scar, and behold the stories were true, the City of Hate, Neriak stands before us!



Luckily the Teir'Dal have also annexed a part of Neriak for Foreign Quarter so Ogres have free passage through to these slave areas, so I pass by the Teir'Dal Dread Guard easily, yet I feel their hatred towards me almost seep out of their armour. In Neriak I will always be an underclass, to be used and abused at their whim. They have a busy forge, creating more and more of the necessary equipment to kit out their ranks and furnish their city with ornamentation worthy of the palaces of Maj'Dul.



Delving deeper into the Nerian warren, you come across the Spires of Innoruuk, built to whorship the God of Hate himself. Their architectural beauty just amazes my simple Ogre tastes, I'm almost overwhelmed by their craftmanship.. dominated by it.



Have to keep hurrying, so that the Dread Guard patrolling this area keep their attention on other things.. I'm followed for a while by an Asari Guard, he seems very suspicious of me.. luckily he was distracted for a moment by a gathering of floating imps, kept as living gargoyle ornaments I think, they haunt most of the halls of this mighty place.





The Teir'Dal have constructed a place for the appreciation of their arts, the Nightsong Opera House, a three teired building of enormous beauty, I could stand and stare at it for many days...



but the guards are tracking me now. The Haunting Sirensong drifting out from the building lulls me into a sleepy state and I almost topple off the edge of a precipice.. this city is not very forgiving of bumbling fools... trip or stumble too near the edge and you will plummet hundreds of feet down onto stalagtite spikes. Even the Frostfell celebrities are not immune to a good spiking.



At the end of the warren, is the mighty Darklight Palace, flanked by the House of the Teir'Dal family D'Morte.



And Vampires. I had to make a quick retreat, fending off these biting shrews.. I don't understand why they are tolerated, the Dread Guard doesn't venture this deep..



For all its beauty there is always a price to pay, and I for one am willing to pay it. For the God of Hate, Neriak take me as one of your own!

Pox Nora

http://www.poxnora.com

A hybrid between a turn based strategic battler (like Advance Wars) and a trading collectible card game. The client can be downloaded for free, and you get 8 sets of 'cards' (champions) - although in game they look like miniatures - to play with. If you want your champions to gain experience and have equipment then you need to buy some sets.
As a free battler for quick games during lunchtime this could be a good effort.. as with most collectible games though, the first hit or two is free, but you'll probably want more..

It looks and plays really smoothly..
http://www.poxnora.com/images/screenshots/dow_02.jpg

Gods: Land of Infinity

http://www.gods-game.com/

Its a very well done Homebrew style RPG, with first person roaming, and chatting, and a turn based combat mechanism (ala Final Fantasy). Not sure its worth real money, but its worth having a look at the demo and seeing how the small independant developers are having a crack at some 3d RPG's.. and with a God called Arswaargh you just can't go wrong..

Ballerium

http://www.ballerium.com/

Free to play.. a Massive Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy, comes across as a Warcraft III clone, but with persistant multiplayer capabilities. From the brief play session I had, it was interesting to try and get a grasp on your unit types, but the game seems in desperate need of a decent tutorial. You spend time just wandering (very slowly, I might add) around barren environment, looking for a city to go into (as the start up blurb suggests). But once there, theres no easy instructions into getting established, and the normal well trodden RTS routes, seem all but a distant memory. So it does drop you in deep, without much of a clue what to do. Could be of interest to some RTS types looking to see how the genre can be moulded into a persistant world setting.

Alien Shooter 2

http://www.strategyfirst.com/en/games/AlienShooter2/

If anyone is interested, you can now buy Alien Shooter 2: Vengance from Strategy First as a download only game ($19.99). Its been out in the States on shelves, but hasn't surfaced over here, I've been on the lookout for it for ages..

Shadowgrounds kind of overshadowed it, with its proper 3d graphics and gorgeous lighting (especially in Shadowgrounds:Survivor), but Shadowgrounds tends to be a more personal closer perpspective shooter, the aliens are more difficult to die but a lot less in number.. which spoils it a bit. Alien Shooter 2 with its 2d isometric view (and some nice light effects of its own - only in 2d) does hordes of aliens that can be swathed through much better, and its further back isometric view affords you some tactical advantages when it comes to using environment and layout to bottleneck those alien swarms. Also Alien Shooter 2 has a lot more RPG progression in your character and its stats than Shadowgrounds. Top games for the "marine gunning alien action" genre, but Alien Shooter 2 pips Shadowgrounds by sheer numbers of swarming foes.

Bruce Parry does the Amazon

Bruce Parry of TRIBE fame, begins his journey..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/amazon/sites/map/index.shtml

He's using Googlemaps and video/blog entries along the way to tell the story interactively as he heads along the Amazon river. The expedition will culminate in a 6 part show in Autumn 2008, but you can follow it as it happens at this blogsite. I'm a big fan of Bruce, and I love this info tracking stuff when its focussed on a journey and a project.. onto Google Reader you go Sir!

Bellatorus

http://www.bellatorus.com

Bellatorus is a 3d rendered and much more polished card game version of one of my oldie favourites known as 'ants' - which was based on a game called Archomage.

http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=3761
http://www.antanasijevic.com/ants.html

Anyway Bellatorus seems to be more slick and looks much better, plus it has the fluff option of zooming around over your tower base, or even following an avatar through the base in 3d. You get to see buildings emerge as you request them, and even resources thrown into the air from the people generating them.

I used to love playing Ants, and always wanted a much more convincing graphical version of it, and I guess Bellatorus is it. Nice.

Mass Effect

I've finished a Normal run through Mass Effect in about roughly 25 hours. I would say it has been one of the most exciting and involving pieces of game play I've had this year. I must declare the fact that I come to Mass Effect prepared, in that I'd given enough time to read the prequel novel to the game beforehand. I enjoyed that novel and its story immensely. It was good, believable Science Fiction. Continuing that story into the game itself, was a big part of the experience, because I was able to step into that universe and take an active (if fairly predetermined) part in it. Places and races I'd imagined through the writings had become tangible and interactive. The pleasurable fog of imagination had been gently blown clear to reveal a living and pulsing environment where I could explore (and sometimes scrutinise) individuals to my hearts content, where I could exercise control over bursts of action, and decide what parts of the unfolding destiny I would delve into next. The prequel novel is by no means a requirement to enjoying Mass Effect, and if you question the right people, you get a summary of the books plot explained to you fully. But, what the prequel did was whet my appetite for this world, tease me with tidbits for the epic scale of the tale about to be told in the game.

I could wax lyrical about the game in terms of my emotive attachment to the character I created and controlled in that world. But I'd like to get across not only the cinematic euphoria that you open up along the way, but the mechanics by which they assemble this journey.

Highlights of the game:

Story: I've mentioned the Story already, a very adult and convincing story that takes place in a very believable setting. Drew Karpyshyn http://www.drewkarpyshyn.com, the writer, has certainly won me over and I'll be looking forward to sampling his other titles.

"Acting" and dialogue: Normally imparting a lot of dialogue to the player can slow things down, and hinder any sense of forward flow. Players begin to skip over sections in favour of tasting the action based "sweet spots". Bioware has managed to craft a mechanism by which NPC's can perform their lines with believable acting. Coupled with excellent voice acting, natural conversational flow and concise trimming of the information presented, their ability to impart story elements in a fascinating and engaging way is probably one of the games major achievements. I have been guilty of dialogue skipping in the past in many info heavy RPG's, but Mass Effect had me positively excited at the prospect of learning more about a character or about a story hook, wanting to delve deeper into the conversational tree and unearth more treats.

Mako: Much of the planetary exploration is done via the Mako, an all terrain vehicle, resembling an armour plated moon buggy. I found the Mako a joy to drive/pilot, I believe many people found the controls to be awkward. I think if you come at the Mako as if it was a Warthog from Halo, you'd be misjudging its elegance in control. Whilst it does have a similar point and move interface the right stick is primarily used for aiming the main cannon, or artillery shot. Moving the aiming reticule left of right will attempt to adjust the Mako's direction in small increments, if the left stick (for throttle) is pushed forward. However, the left stick is the key to controlling the Mako, not the right stick. Point the left stick hard left and the Mako will move forward in that direction, left. Move the stick back and the Mako will move backwards. So its entirely possible to circle strafe an installation or enemy using the left stick to determine the Mako's direction, and the right stick to aim the cannons. This coupling (and independence) of the two sticks makes the Mako a very manoeuvrable vehicle indeed. Plus on top of this you have the jump jets, that can launch the buggy up in the air - particularly useful for overcoming difficult terrain and avoiding slow moving rocket fire. The machine can turn on a sixpence and is very adept at climbing up steep mountainous landscape. I had nothing but fun with the Mako, driving it and positioning it for strategic shots was most rewarding. Escaping and taking cover and repairing it was necessary at times. It is a powerful armoured transport, but its no way invincible. The Mako physics were a real treat, once you understood and adapted to the controls.

Action: I found the combat to be fast paced and tactical. A major step forward in terms of going real time and ranged, from the turn based approach Bioware used in the Knights of the Old Republic games. What was extremely satisfying was the fact that if you died taking one particular approach to the combat, you could load the save game, change your tactical approach and see obvious advantages and disadvantages quite clearly. The gunfights are more Rainbow Six than Gears of War. But they still delivered the action based adrenaline surge, with the satisfaction of seeing different RPG tweaks and modifications manifest into victories or defeats.

Classes and Difficulty: The three main classes, plus the three hybrids give enough breadth for you to try the play through with a few characters and still see different approaches to the same tactical combat situations. The mix of ranged weapon types, with biotic powers and technological devices creates a very interesting mix for your characters development and those of the main accompanying squad members. You also have 6 squad mates who you can pick and choose from, with their fixed class/race representations. So you could play through with the same character build, and just choose different squad members to ally with and possibly have a different approach to combat situations. The variety on offer fuels your enthusiasm for creating a different build, and playing through again on a harder difficulty setting. As soon as I'd completed the game, I'd already mapped out what I wanted to be and how I was going to approach it on my Hardcore play through. I must say, as hardcore ramps up the enemies health and resistances, it does turn the game into a much more tactical experience.. and part of me wished I'd done it on Hardcore from the start. The combat now has to be thought out almost before the first shot is taken. And with a single run under my belt, I can now feel my way through parts of the game I didn't explore with my first character. I think the game has succeeded in creating something which is at least re playable and still entertaining for two or three passthroughs. Unlocking the specialist armour and arms in itself is a draw for some people.

Music: It may not appeal to everyone, but the almost vangelis like musical score sits very well with the art direction and general theme of the Mass Effect world/universe. I found it enhancing during combat situations and mood setting in most places. I like the enjoy game music outside of the game too, Anarchy Online's soundtrack still being an all time favourite of mine, and I think Mass Effect's musical score has a similar appeal.


Lowlights of the game:


Squad AI: There were a number of times when your squad members get stuck, or move somewhere inappropriate and get chewed up. I found if you paid close attention to the commands you sent your squad, holding them back mainly and opening up long range or crossfire opportunities, you could minimise these 'errors of judgement' on your allies part. But sometimes they hinder your movement in narrow corridors, sometimes they don't move when they should - stuck on environment.

Unlocking/Decrypting Mini-game: Adopting a very simple key tap process to give the impression of a complex hacking task is a bit too much like over-simplification. If they could have varied it slightly for different operations. Added some other mini-game mechanic in there to keep the process time dependant and interesting it might have helped. As it is, its hardly a 'mini game' and even lockers/containers that are deemed HARD, seem very easy to tap open. Its not a major downer, because it becomes just a pedestrian task to have to do, to get at the all important loot.

Elevators: A loading mechanism, that seems to be used very often in the game. The world of Mass Effect is littered with Elevators. And whilst you do get a chance to listen to some snippet of radio chatter, or your squad members banter, it only serves the purpose of slowing down the game with long inactive pauses. I realise with such a lot of information needing to be loaded its more aesthetic than a loading screen. But the long elevator rides do wear away at some of the enjoyment, possibly keeping you back from exploring places, simply because you cannot bear another long pause of doing nothing. I used most elevator rides to spin the camera round and admire my character's outfit and other attributes.

Exploration: In addition to the main storied planets, you can explore Uncharted Worlds. Essentially some of the planets in each galaxy, star system can be explored. Whilst this was a welcome addition, in terms of including side-quests (assignments) to the main story, the reality was that only one planet per system usually allowed set down, and then once there only one or two curiosities were available for you to drive up to and investigate. Sometimes you'd have to assault a base or check out an anomaly, but the bases tended to be built around a very limited set of tiles, often encountering the same base type on a number of Uncharted Planets. The freedom of the Uncharted Worlds is a real plus point in terms of longevity from Downloadable Content, because I can see a lot of scope for including additional content through this exploration mechanism, or even randomly generated assignments, the ability to do this is there, whether it is on the cards at Bioware I'm not sure. The limited implementation and repetitive use of tile sets at the moment take away from the feeling of galactic freedom that the game seems to promise.

Graphical Glitches: Some frame rate slowdown when the combat becomes very frantic and littered with enemies. That was the main graphical downer for me. And I must say it only happened a handful of times. People have reported the texture pop-in being a major cause for concern, but I didn't find that annoying really. It meant less time loading in elevators or in game transitions and more time in game. So there were few seconds of low texture mapping till the proper textures were loaded up, it was a price I was prepared to pay.


Overall:

Bioware had me, as I delved into their prequel novel. I was sold on their concept of bringing a believable science fiction universe to life, where I could take part in the main story line, and explore the nuances of the details left in all the sub-plots and side assignments. Mass Effect is going to be a trilogy, but the first installment was satisfyingly brought to a close without leaving a frustrating cliffhanger. The game world has enough depth to open up the story for the next games to come, I think Mass Effect will become a very popular vehicle for Sci Fi RPG's on the 360, and I'm hoping they will boost the games longevity with key downloadable content, building upon the uncharted world mechanism they have in place. Despite the few niggles and mechanisms that don't seem to work that well, I think Mass Effect has pushed the envelope significantly forward on what we will expect in our action RPG's in the future. What worries me is how can I watch other games dialogue scenes without having the same level of "acting" and lavish story detail? They've set a new bar for NPC interaction, and I doubt most games will be able to hurdle it.

Mass Effect, well worth your time and money, if you have any interest in good Science Fiction, Tactical Action, and Character progression/tinkering.

HellGate: Sight Seeing

Piccadilly Circus (in a bit of a state after the demons started partying there..)



The Houses of Parliment (as viewed from a drained River Thames basin)



This next shot doesn't do the scale of the conflict justice, but my task was to help the local Templars out defending an area in the basin of the Thames river, activating the shock turrets, whilst chipping away at the horde of Vortex Guardians that were swarming the area.



You can see the shock turrets laying electricity streams onto the giants, and the downed templars, I'm just about to run in and start hacking at their shins, if I can find some medi-stims in my armour pockets.

Lastly a shot of how not to take down a flying Ravager. These demonic vermin, scurry about avoiding your blades, and then pounce a long distance at your face..

Hellgate

The more I play Hellgate, the more I fall in love with it. I'd sort of sidelined it, after the beta, as a distraction that was ultimately souless. As an FPS it is poor. If your'e wanting to play this game in first person then you're probably coming at if from the wrong angle, buy Bioshock, or Timeshift, or Blacksite, they'll probably deliver in the first person shooting department tenfold over Hellgate. Wheelmouse your expectations backwards, and take on the third person perspective, better still take up a tech sword, splash damage boomstick or kit yourself out with some attack droids and inhibitor drones.. and you'll be ready to take on Hellgate as the action fest it is meant to be.

This is Diablo. In the future. But with the demons. And guns. And robots. Played in sumptious 3d gore-o-vision. There are six classes on offer, which all play different enough to warrant your exploration of them. The game provides London tube stations as hubs for you gather quests and tweak your kit, with generated instanced quest locations to dive into and test out your latest action hero. The game has single player and multiplayer modes, both of which follow the same storyline, and quest progression. However the multiplayer mode allows you to group up with others. Although it offers a paid subscription for additional functionality in the multiplayer game, this is probably only something Hellgate fanatics will bother with. You get 2 character slots for single player and 3 character slots for the multiplayer game - so your average Joe will have enough slots just out of the box, to explore most of the game with the classes they want. The nutters who want to pay the subs fee, get another 20 odd slots, can make guilds, can hold more items in their stash and inventory, as well as download content that has been promised in the future.

So, taking on the demonic hoards, whether single player or solo-ing on a multiplayer server, is a rewarding affair, mainly because you get frequent rewards, theres a lot to tinker with in terms of item upgrading with slotted additions, item breakdown to constituent parts, and the forging of new items from those parts. Theres always something to tweak after each high octane blast of action. And the station hubs provide more or less everything you need for that tinkering process. You'll also be climbing the skill tree, slowly but surely, experimenting with new skills, seeing how it fits in with your overall idea of the character. I think the most rewarding experience in the game, is taking on a new skill that sounds "cool" and then taking that skill out and seeing where it fits in to the chaos of the combat. Grabbing a high arc swing of your sword that is meant to take down otherwise unreachable enemies in flight, and then scrapping with a room full of sonic bats, and dropping high arc's, to see your futuristic character leap into the air, and slash her weapons hard down grounding the bat, and finishing him in one swing.

The damage caused by the weapons can be quite specific, such as fire direct, or electric splash, so its worth having an array of specifc weapons set up to tackle certain enemy situations. Tailoring the spectrum from close panic striken direct damage, to rocket launchers that hit floating entities, and fire splash guns that lay a carpet of napalm for that added area effect, slowly gnawing away at the enemy, slowing them down and controlling the flow of seemingly endless minions of beelzebub. I think one of things that strikes you as you play through, is the variety of attacks coming from the enemies side, and the variety on offer from the player side to counter this. Theres nothing that new about roaming hordes, mini bosses, and then lovely tough bosses to take on. The areas are fairly consistent, broken streets of London, underground tunnels and warehouses, or staggeringly epic halls of hell - but a lot of the time the area adds a hint of flavour to the combat, but isn't the main thrust of the dish, its the combat that slaps your tastebuds around and satisfies you at the end of the meal.

There are mechanisms in place, common to MMO's, for travelling swiftly through the world - station terminals that will port you from station to station, as long as you've visited it before. There are recall gadgets for piping yourself out of an instance temporarily (or not) - so you can complete that quest, tinker with your set up, sell up etc. Although some instances have recall blocked.. if they're end quest lines, or boss levels. Death is handled in a way that doesn't seem to harsh, you can pay a sum of money to resurrect where you are, or you can enter the current instance as a ghost at the beginning, and then you can be resurrected when you get back your deathstone.

The game seems to have some sort of memory leak at the moment, so after a few hours play, shutting it down, your system will need a reboot for it to start performing again. There are moments of intense slow down, which is a shame. Because a lot of the time it does come across as stunning to look at, with lots of atmospheric lighting and weapon/spell effects on the go.

There doesn't seem to be an online community as such, the time I've spent on the EU server, has resulted in lots of silence, no co-operation, only one group. The grouping tactics haven't yet revealed themselves to me. Apart from melee characters get in up close and personal, and ranged ones don't. However, I can see this game being very enjoyable if a small group of friends decide to take it on, with characters all levelling at the same pace, enjoying the thrill of the action as they progress together through its challenges. Whether MMO style guilds and co-operation takes off, I'm not sure.

So, I reckon Hellgate is pushing the action RPG onwards, taking what Diablo did so well, but twisting it third person, removing the endless clicks, and giving it almost an MMO lick of paint - but with a candidate for "twitch" action mechanics on offer rather than your usual queues of special attack keys. This is the new Anarchy Online. Sci Fi action in bucketloads. But at your own pace. In your own futuristic armour. Lovely Jubbly.

The Witcher

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=86156

An action RPG, using the much enhanced Aurora toolset 2007(NWN2), so you can play it top view (diablo style) or Over the Shoulder OTS (almost Gears of War style). The world is beautifully realised, much more grittier and realistic than Two Worlds (or even Oblivion), with a strong storyline by Andrzej Sapkowski (http://tinyurl.com/2k6gch ) behind it. I've only dabbled in it for an hour or two, but it does seem to be another sound action orientated "free roaming" RPG game with good presentation and a selection of unique skills to explore.

The one area that is difficult to get to grips with is the combat mechanics. Basically if you're in OTS mode, you expect it to play out weapon strikes by clicking and holding your left and right mouse button.. but since its all based around a point and click mechnism from a top down perspective, to get the hang of it, you simply click the opponent at the appropriate time, to build up a chain of weapon swings. So it's not entirely free form and real time as such. You tap out the battles key strokes, when your icon turns into a flaming sword. Get the tap wrong, and you lose the chain, and sometimes can fumble the strike.. initially I struggled to understand this mechanism. And I would almost constantly be interupting my own attacks, making me seem inept at battle. But as you get into a rhythm with the game, it starts to click (forgive the pun) and you see how this almost turn based sort of timed combat actually works and is very cinematic and pleasing to watch. If you play it in top down mode, and you've played NWN/NWN2 you should find the combat easy to slip into to. I think its just the perspective change, and your expectations of real time sword swinging conflict with this "rhythm tap" style game.

Did I mention its an 18? And theres every encouragement for you to get drunk and have intercourse with some of the female NPC's you come across? It's all very artistically done, and I'm pelased it has such an adult approach to the gritty fantasy world. It kind of makes it a bit more exciting to be honest. In fact some of your key combat skills rely on you being drunk to perform them! Now then!

Well I've only scratched the surface of the game really, there seems a complex alchemical system built into the game for potion creation, the day and night phases of the world affects the encounters you have, and the starting quests are full on, no gentle lead in really, which is good.

I think if you like action RPG's, such as Two Worlds, Diablo, you'll like The Witcher.. even those of you who fawned over Oblivion will see this game has merit. Whether you can get on with the Aurora way of combat, is another matter though. But as jarring as it is at first, I can say after 15 minutes or so you should slip into it with ease..

Eye of Judgement

Well this sort of game is right up my street, and its easy for me to see why it causes a lot of excitement, real cards initiating on screen summonings.. move over Yu-Gi-Oh! If you want a totally unbiased and well balanced review, then look away now. I must confess I am a card-a-holic. I love everything to do with cards. I have collected weird and wonderful variations on playing cards, I have buckets of collectable and non-collectable card games. I'm a recovering Magic the Gathering Online user. I've dabbled in Decipher's Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game Online. So.. where does this leave me with Eye of Judgement? As a fan, I think. By default.

Having said this, I must say I was sceptical about the setup, it seems an awful lot of faffing about to knock out a game of cards... but then the draw of physically performing the summonings was too much to turn away from it. It was easy enough to get the thing hooked up, apart from the folded creases in the material playmat, which irritated me more than the camera. The tutorial videos went through the whole process from setup, to play. Sometimes, being a bit too thorough in their slow paced re-iteration of the same facts. I was dying to jump in and get started, but I forced myself to watch their videos... so I wouldn't hit the game confused in anyway whatsoever.

The cards themselves were a bit of a disappointment, mainly because the artwork is contained in a very small band across the center of the card, with lots of seemingly extraneous fluff and whitespace, with the runic "bar codes" at the top and bottom of the card. The card text is tiny too. A "squinter" as us oldies call it. So I'd prefer more outlandish splash of artwork, but presumably that might hinder the card recognition system. And still, you're seeing all the 3d renderings moving about on screen after a summoning, so you don't need too much artwork on card. I suppose coming from a card loving background, an expectation to see some luscious art in hand was mistakenly there. But I'd have made the text a lot bigger. Because you use that when deciding on which card to lay from your hand.

My first game against the COMP was a bit of a disaster. In terms of strategy and winning. I lost. But I must say, the thrill of laying cards down and performing summonings physically, rather than with the controller, is very tangible. I suppose it takes the best from both worlds, proper card battling at a table, and computer controlled card battling, and melds them together. The game itself, is played out on a small board, made up of 9 square "fields", and comes across as a more complicated version of noughts and crosses really. But the complexities are layered on in terms of elemental field types (each square possessing two elements, one on its upper face and one on its underside) - water, fire, earth, wood - where summons are affected by the elemental type of the field they are placed upon. Other complexities involve direction of attack, and vulnerability of back attacks. Some of the summons have multi-directional attacks, some include direction changing in their attacks. Spell cards add to this by flipping the fields and changing the elemental field type, or changing the direction of a unit. So from such a small play area, there are quite a few options and strategies that can be built upon to make sure you secure the 5 fields out of the 9 to win the game.

The battles themselves are often a simple animation and the resulting attack and defense numbers are resolved. Not as elaborate as one would have liked, but the battle animations are functional, and you do get to see your units rendered and in motion. If a unit is killed, you have to remove the card from the play area. There are four special action cards that you use to perform things like designate a target of attack, or to end your turn. You have 30 cards in your play deck, and you can buy boosters and themed decks (from early November allegedly) to tweak your deck. In the box off the shelf, you get 30 cards in a starter deck and a booster with 8 random cards. So with each box you do have a slight amount of variation from the rest of the people who bought the game. I can't see me delving into buying a lot of booster packs, and what not, trying to compete online, because thats not really where I derive pleasure from such games.

Anyway, Eye of Judgement is a niche novelty product, and in its current state, it has enough going for it, to provide a rather entertaining distraction from your normal console gaming. I can't see it winning over any of the casual gamers, because of the strategy elements and the involved setup to play it. But it does serve as a card lovers wet dream, and so far the AI opponents set to beginner have given me the run around once or twice, so there is mileage there in just the single player experience. I've yet to take it online and play someone who is as daft as me for buying it, but thats planned. For the online experience, you have to scan your cards in to a custom play deck, and then as you are playing an opponent the game itself will shuffle your custom deck and tell you which card to draw next, preventing player cheating at stacking the cards. Having to shuffle through your 30 cards to find the next draw does seem to go against normal play, but I can see in the interest of fairness its the only way it could be implemented easily.

Right, I'm off to have another wet dream, and summon some bikini clad elven archers...

Depths of Peril

http://www.depthsofperil.com/

Take a fairly rough around the edges Diablo II clone, add to it some 4X style diplomacy and conquest, and you have Depths of Peril. It's an intersting idea, taking your standard click based hack and slash action RPG, and meld it with a faction based trade and conquest ethos. Every game you play, you set the parameters for the world, the
difficulty of the monsters, the number of opposing factions to your own - and then you forge a hero to go out into these areas to perform quests from the settlement hub, to level up, gains new skills, gain influence, cashand loot - as well as try to recruit others to your party and your faction (or in game its called Covenant). Once you've got a few members, and you've decorated your Covenant hut with relics and tomes of knowledge, plus placed some guards to defend the place. You can begin to start allying and ganging up on some of the other Covenants who are AI controlled factions, running similar heros and recruits around the world trying to gain the most influence and power and utterly destroy the other factions. If you are Allied with other factions just make sure when you destroy the bad guys, you have the top level of influence within your alliance, so that you can claim the win.

Despite the 1990's graphics, it can be quite involving when you begin to use your hack and slash hero, to stock up your hut based barbarian "empire". I like the scope of the game, to make a balance between the decidedly average (in terms of graphics and complexity of quests) killing and questing sprees and the empire building (basically collecting bonuses and hired hands), with the diplomacy of joining some factions together to then turn and wipe out the weaker ones. Good effort on the hybrid gaming idea.

Geon: Emotions

Its a weird one, it combines a few elements of other games into the gameplay, all played out on a reversable map area made of squares sometimes twisted into loops and ramps etc..

.. essentially you have to ..

collect pills to fill a meter
collect "emotion" power ups (you can only have one at any time)
when your meter is full you have to get to the edge of a map and flip over, making a run towards the goal area (usually in the center of the maps) to score.
All the while keeping an eye on your opponent who is doing the same, to try and score in your goal, except he's on the reverse side of the map, and you should be able to peek him and his whereabouts through the semi-transparent tiles.

I think the key to it is, using a logical path through the pills to make sure you've easy and quick access to the goal and also to keep your eye on the opponent, if he's filling up his pill meter faster than you, its key you hit him with something that will suck it back down again. Even on the smaller areas it is tricky to collect and watch your opponent at the same time. I'm sure after a good few plays I'll get the hang of it.

The Emotion power ups, have different functions, like the blast through one that allows you to stomp the pills out of your opponent if he's in your vicinity on the opposite side of the map/track. There are ones that obscure the tiles, ones that allow you to speed ahead, and some powerslide into your opponent. Basically most of them are spoilers to make your opponent lose pills, or slow them down, like traps, or boosters to make you go faster, or shield you from your opponents spoilers. Getting to grips with these and their combinations is where the strategy comes into play.

Worth a look-see though, just for the oddness of the gameplay mechanics.. not a puzzler though, as such, think pacman/kulaworld but in a head to head to spoil or score goals against your opponent.

Two Worlds

Mayhap I verily like Two Worlds, Forsooth.

I was looking forward to this game, heralded as the next Oblivion.. not that I hold Oblivion up as the definitive console RPG game that everyone else seems to do. Anyway, I grabbed a copy of Two Worlds and hurdled into it with both feet fervently jabbing my medieval stirrups into my horses sides. I was bitterly disappointed to see such a awkward and ugly game crumble in my hands. The graphics just jarred with me from the off, nothing was crisp, nothing was easily read or sometimes even identified in the user interface. The single player character customisation was singularly under whelming, I couldn't change gender, the hairstyles available were all very similar and limited to about 5 in total - and the colours supported seemed even less. You could mess with the characters stature - chest size, arm length, eye shape, nose width and length but nothing seemed to define your character as anything but this bland hero. So onwards, into the tutorial, some combat, some magic thrown about, haphazardly as the targeting mechanism shifts according to distance away from you, rather than have any focus on one enemy. Some chatting with blurred and shaky NPC's, the chatting itself being laden thick with Ye Olde English, almost too thick for any credibility. Sort of the way people who don't play RPG's think all RPG's are voiced. The stuttering and frame rate issues didn't help, the blatant halts for environment loads had me wondering if my 360 had crashed at times. I did begin to enjoy the freedom and the combat, particularly once I'd secured a mount to ride. There is a decent game behind this cranky port, its not so much Oblivion as Diablo, which is a plus point in my opinion.

I decided I'd try out the PC demo, I wanted to see what this game looked like with graphics I could be comfortable with. Needless to say, the PC version of the game is crisp and looks the part. At last. The scenery looks good, the Armour and your character crisp and defined, and the interface isn't garbled and just plain works as you'd expect. I went out and bought the PC version. Very pleased with it. In terms of features it has a large continent that can be explored at your leisure, or in a focussed manner as you progress through the main quest line or side quests. It has a very pleasing combat mechanism, in that its easy to use and looks good in third person. The console ranged combat (archery and magics) targeting mechanism leaves a lot to be desired, but in the PC version is well suited. The archery in particular requires you to draw the bowstring and control the power of the shot, with many enemies attacking you from all sides this becomes key when you're timing your shot in between taking melee damage and the shot being interrupted. It has a readily accessible alchemical process for manufacturing your own custom potions. Harvest crystals/gems and plants from the world, and combine them freely. It also allows you to take multiples of existing equipment and combine them to boost the stats, so if you find another sword similar to the one you're wielding, pick it up and combine it, to gain an increase, this also applies to Armour, shields, quivers and jewellery. The magic system allows for a five school spell card collecting game, with each spell card also having booster cards that can be combined with them to tweak your spells. You find spell cards as loot, or you can buy them from vendors. One of the nicest features is the horse travel and combat. They have really taken horse travel to another level with this game, in that your horse feels and moves as a horse would. With it shying away from steep drops, and only following land it can feasibly travel. This can lead to some interesting refusal issues with such a undulating landscape, but it makes you truly appreciate the road system when you want your steed to get up to a proper gallop. Press forward to make the beast trot at a gentle pace, or hold forward to make it increase speed from a trot to cantor to gallop. You can also take swings at enemy from your horse if you are wielding a single handed weapon. Something which can be boosted with extra damage using the riding skill. I can imagine it being quite tricky to become proficient in mounted combat, mainly because of the larger turning arcs your horse has to take compared to most enemies. Imagine the jousting style PvP combat of the online game though. Which leads me on to ..

The 360's online mode allows you to create an RPG or PVP character (and this time you can select gender). There seemed to be "arenas" created where you could adventure or battle with your online friends. These arenas seemed to be various portions of the main map, but with invisible walls marking them off. The enemies present in these online worlds seemed to be much more difficult than the standard single play, presumably for team combat to play a part. I only tried one arena, as an RPG character and was promptly hacked to pieces for the next 10 minutes by another player, which didn't do a great deal to endear me to the experience. The PC's online mode seems to be more modelled on Diablo's Battle.net, and it is indeed called Warnet. You log in to the warnet servers and you enter into a multiplayer zone (usually a city) where you can assemble and buy/sell/tweak, then you take yourself off into an instance pretty much like the 360's arenas. With its own quests and harder enemies to battle. Returning to the city hub, you bring back your experience and equipment. I can see this aspect of the game, giving it some life in the online community, much like Diablo II did. And I'm itching to try it out to see if there are party mechanics at work here.

Overall I'd say Two Worlds is a great game, if you're looking for something approximating to a free-roam, story filled Diablo style game. It doesn't take itself too seriously as the dialogue can be very "hey nonny nonny", I believe intentionally so. If you like good visual combat, looting and tweaking a lot, and riding around a vast lush landscape on a horse ready for battle at any moment, then Two Worlds is worth a look. If you want to see it in its full glory I'd say buy the PC version. The 360 version will suffice if its all you've got. Is it the next Oblivion, probably not. But for me, its better than Oblivion. I'm likely to see this game through to the end, and the ride feels far more enjoyable.

Puzzle Quest

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=75377


I must say I've been playing this for a while now, and it just gets etterer and betterer. Wrapping an RPG around a sophisticated "bejewelled puzzler" has really got me hooked. Its got all the things ou want in an RPG, levelling, items, quests, taverns and crafting(!), lus its got an RTS-lite style city building aspect. Its quick enough to play on short journeys and involved enough over time to still be of interest, and not just a novelty. I suppose your mileage will depend if you like the "bejewelled match 3 or more style play". The cunning thing is, the four coloured orbs are mana, and you have certain skills/spells you can cast only if you have collected the correct mana to fuel it. Also you only do damage to the enemy you're fighting against, if you match up the skulls, and do your best to prevent setting up your enemy for skull matches. Each opponent seems to have specials of their own, which adds a lot to the change in strategy you have to adopt, making each matching session slightly different. Along with bonus quests where its more like a traditional puzzle, and you have to find the correct solution to clear the map, there are also crafting puzzles where the objective is to take out hammers and anvils, to boost your chances to create a special item. For a surprisingly simple match 3 formula, they've managed to weave a lot of
variations into the mix, and theme it with a good dose of fantasy RPG.

Zenerchi

If you like the match 3 sort of games, and want something a little different, then this is a blast.

http://www.reflexive.com/Zenerchi.html

Its based on spinning wheels, to  match the 3 or more coloured tiles, and then dump them out through a central reserve for points. There are blocking tiles, and holding tiles, and energy balls that link two wheels together. If you match 5 you get a powertile, which can be saved for extra points at the tally up, or you can double click it to take out its surrounding tiles. Useful for ridding yourself of troublesome blockers.

It has a fairly slow intro tutorial to get you into the swing of it, and it runs two modes a timed mission/level based one, and a zen mode which just lets you continue until you attain the victory condition. It seems overly simple to begin with and you wonder whether its almost too simple and perhaps dull.. but when you start to understand the tricks and lining up strategies it soon becomes addictive and you'll find your 60 minutes of trial time sucked away..

Hanafuda Game

My homespun Hanafuda game is still alive and kicking, although terribly dated now, with only 800x600 resolution supported, and XP will no doubt have trouble playing the music files. Still, it is a solid AI behind it, that I had help with designing, and the game itself is fun if a little simplistic and too prone to luck. If you have nothing better to do with your life, check it out.. the cards are still lovely to behold..

Hanafuda @ Underdogs

Settlers of Catan

Catan is great! Played the 'Learn as you play' game this morning. Actually played it twice, because you got to 7 victory points and it wouldn't let you continue unless you unlocked it, and the unlocking mechanism wasn't in place! So I waited half an hour, and then played again, and could finally unlock the thing to finish the game. I was so pleased I won. Even though they're all set to easy AI. I managed to haggle another player into throwing a lot of grain cards at me, and then I used the Port Trading to swap them out for the rock card I needed to bag the city and 2 victory points to 10 to win! I'd read the rules a while back from the board game I have, but never actually played them. However, the Learn as you play option is excellent and gives you the gist of the game in a few minutes really, although getting a handle on the strategy needed is going to take a while I think. Primarily a capture and trading game, it seems ideal for XBLA. Its going to have the snug play that Uno has but with a bit more strategy meat on the bones.

The screen fonts are a bit small, they are readable if you are close-ish to the TV. This is common, because nearly all the card/board games etc have really small fonts.. (hearts, spades, outpost kazloki, Wik?) not to mention that zombie game. Having said that the game is all about icons and the main body of play doesn't require much in the way of text. So once you're through the tutorial game, you're about done with the squinting.

Looking forward to taking part in some Catanning..

Advent Rising

http://www.adventtrilogy.com/

I grabbed this off Steam for the PC the other day for $19.99 and was pleasantly surprised - I remember when it first come out on the Xbox and I toyed with the idea of buying it then, but wasn't sure.

It's like a 3rd person Halo-esque adventure that has Jedi style powers thrown in. The FMV is well done, although a bit flaky in the delivery at times, the audio stutters a bit, and the lipsync seems to be slightly out, but the story unfolds at a rapid pace and is an interesting and adult sort of sci fi yarn. It has Orson Scott Cards backing, since he scripted it, so that puts it above the usual european sci fi bullshit that rolls out from the likes of Jowood. The FMV does suffer from the "I'm from an Xbox" syndrome, similar to the recently re-leased Jade Empire special edition. But the in-game graphics are suitably sharp and sweet. Control with a keyboard can get a bit awkward at times, but mainly in the acrobatics area, the combat running and gunning is standard WASD and mouse look fare.

There are some nice set pieces, with space ships crumbling beneath you, and the action is always frantic. Nice array of weapons on offer, and duel wielding is standard from the off. When you begin to develop force like skills, such as lift, push and pull, things get very interesting. Later you develop shielding and blast force skills too. Stealing weapon skills etc. The combo of arms and force skills does seem to give you plenty of options when it comes to the boss fights, but the majority of the normal combat sees you usually adopt your favourite techniques and stick with them. Plenty of buggy and tank driving in there too. If you want you can flick to 1st person perspective, but I found it much more cinematic and natural in 3rd person.

Drawn in by it really, mainly the story, the alien lifeforms you meet and the immediacy of the action. Suprised it was very much overlooked, but then again, parts of it are a little flaky in places. Staggering about when trying to negotiate ledges etc. Very nice art direction, very cinematically put together. They did plan a trilogy, with a game on the PSP too, but sadly, it didn't receive the attention and it all went bad I think. Apparently the PC version is a bit more bug free and spruced up compared with the original Xbox version.

If you like Halo'ey action, it could be worth a butchers.

Lord of the Rings Online

Well, initially disappointed in it, I've started to warm to it again. Second beta client in.

Graphically, they've gone a bit too astray from the Peter Jackson vision we all know and love. The world is a bit too cartoony. A bit too colourful and 'feathered cap' for my liking. Where is the gritty mud soaked realism Wingnut films threw at us in 3 hour chunks? With Dungeons and Dragons Online login/update mechanism reskinned, the entrance to the LOTRO client is a bit too familiar. When you're in there, waves of deja vu wash over you, whispering Guild Wars and Asherons Call in your shell like. The world is well crafted, with some areas showing off sights to be dumb struck at, but mostly, you get the feeling, that this isn't the MMO of the film of the book.

The initial quests you are thrust into are simplistic, but flavoured enough in LOTR lore, for LOTR fans to be swept up in joining Elrond in battle, or seeing Gandalf and Gimli. As tutorial quests they do give you basics in a nicely presented way, although they get a bit tedious if you're on them for the 5th time (rolling different characters). Then you have a mini-area to play in and get your feet. Similar to Guild Wars, you get a tight knit area to run some quests and cut your teeth, with the skill progression, and the beginnings of your character tweaking. Once you've eeked out all quests and you've camped one or two bosses, with plenty of others, you get to run through another storied instance into the bigger world of Middle Earth.

You're more or less plonked into this without explanation. And the subtleties of the game are gleaned by plenty of chit and chat on the /ooc channel, or a brief search on the web for info-packed fan sites. The player achievements are very welcome, and you gain traits and skills and increases in your damage as you level up.

The combat is good in that many of the special skills you posses act in chains, so that you are always planning a chain to lay down on the enemy. Keeping you interested, and not just mindlessly mashing buttons. However, some of the melee combat is a bit weak willed. Doesn't feel satisfying. And the combat animations (as well as most of the player animations) feel awkward, mistimed and gangly. Since I played an archer (Elven, from Mirkwood, obviously!), there is satisfaction in coupling a double shot, with a barbed shot, which them adds a damage multiplier to a melee hit when they come up close and personal. Plus you have traps (which lay invisibly), with which to hold your pray and get another shot off at them. It may sound like the combat is rubbish, but its not, its just animated a bit rubbish. The combat actually works well, and the combinations you can lay down do always keep you in the action, especially with the variability of misses, evades and blocks coming into play. If only I could duel wield earlier than level 20, I'd have my Legolas clone with big daggers from the films. I do however have an attack that jabs the enemy in the face with an arrow. A personal favourite of mine.

I must say, I've found the LOTRO community to be about as hostile as you can get. Not Neocron hostile, but Guild Wars hostile. Theres a lot of trouble with having a multi-laguage server, being inundated with reams of french or german doesn't help sift the info. Also, asking questions rarely gets an answer, and forming fellowships (teams, parties) seems to be against most players religion. Being in a ravine full of players as well as menacing orcs, and then being jumped by three of orcs instead of the planned one, you'd expect the player populace to help out a bit. After all, you've spent some time plinking your mirkwood arrows into their beasts to help them out with adds. But no. They'll happily let you die. Some, will exploit the aggro of a helper, so that you help them with the damage, and attract the beasts attention, then they'll happily wander off to let you deal with it, and they'll take the experience reward and come back for the loot too.

I do like the idea that you kill animals in the field for their skins and bones to craft stuff from, rather than just because we needed something to kill. All your quarry seems fairly natural for the area. And a hunter, does indeed feel like they're hunting for their wellbeing, and not just because we need to kill x of y.

Lets try and summarise everything, I like the setting, that goes without saying. I'm not massively keen on the overly colourful rendering of it, but some areas I've seen are really well built (The Shire for instance), the characters are semi-realistic, but with a cartoon bent that Asherons Call suffered from, long before the WoW machine with its "art direction" come on the scene. The combat system seems satisfying enough, if only it was animated better to provide a bit more feedback. The crafting system seems to follow current convention, but its heirarchy and hopefully accessibility will remain to all, and not just the dedicated few. At least the client runs fairly well on lower end machines, we're not talking the juddering monster that Vanguard is here. However it doesn't come across as having the class or style that the DDO engine has.

I can see myself spending a while in the Shadows of Angmar. I enjoy the lore behind it. I enjoy the classes (especially the archer, where archery counts as the main attack skill and not just for pulling - something Asherons Call 2 did well) and the races - although I'd like to have seen a female dwarf option - sexists! I'd like to see how organised grouping works out, because at the moment, theres very little fellowshipping going on at the lower levels. If you prefer your MMO'ing with a bit more grind and substance, you'll probably want to tackle Vanguard. If you want the cartoon art direction and immediacy of WoW, perhaps WoW is where you should be, or Warhammer Online when its released. If you want something that leans between Guild Wars and WoW, with a lot of established Lore behind it (that could be trashed and ruined), and follows the likes of Asherons Call 2 then LOTRO might just be for you. If you can't decide, why not pick up the client and the beta key they're offering and join in the world now?


I think I'd like to be involved with a Legends LOTRO guild, so please show your interest in these forums and we can sort out a start up on the 14th April (when the pre-orders get access to the servers)

Lux Delux

Probably not what Conquer clubbers want to hear, but, I had my first few games of Lux Delux Online this evening, and bugger me if it isn't hard and fast speed Risk.

http://sillysoft.net/lux/

Managed to set up a game with me and my bro, and two bots. Playing through, combat is speedy and all on the right click. However its still all about the Risk. There are seemingly endless maps and the game comes with a map creator if your'e feeling artistic.
Alot of the online games have turn limits imposed, so say 30secs or 50 secs, so it plays very fast indeed. Some of the players who connected to our game as guests and then had a session when I ticked a new game over, were quite robust players, used to the speed Risk game.

Obviously could be a groovey game to get some folks together and have an evening of playing through some of the 400+ maps available. Top stuff. Conquer Clubbers into Risk big style should enjoy Lux and its offline/online capabilities. It has a selection of bots with different AI skills, and you can even try your hand at programming their AI code if you're up to the job.

Give the demo a try at least, if you're sucked into CC. And for 13 quid, Lux Delux certainly delivers that Risk fix when you're not CC'ing it. :)

Age of Empires

I've been giving this a bash recently, grabbed it at £19.99. I do like the overall presentation. The medievil/semi historical touch is very nice, on a handheld that has so many saccharin cutesy RPG nonsense. I like the combat animations too, very nicely done, not cartoony, not too pixellated that you can't get a feel for whats going on. My biggest criticism is the crowded nature of the game in play. Get a few isometric 3d sprites next to each other and you're in trouble to find which one is which, without having to skim over them individually to see their info in the top screen. Target selection does seem tricky, and can lead you to do a dance with the redo menu over and over before you get it right. But I'm using the stylus, not the d-pad and buttons. Taking a village for instance requires you placing iso 3d units in front and behind, and then defensive units spawn on top of the 3d building sprites and it just looks overly messy. Cavalry units taking up the most space and making it even more difficult to see whats going on. Its nice to see the iso sprites moving about and what not, but sometimes I just want an overview of what units are where so I can think about the strategy and not worry about placing wrong units in wrong positions etc.

I must say it has some clout for a handheld strategy game. And even the initial tutorial levels give you something to think about (specifically stopping the battering ram knocking down your church). Worth a punt for that sort of price. But it does have some interface issues, with crowding on the screen. Perhaps I'll try it without the stylus and see if its less frustrating?

Ghost Rider

Saw this yesterday. Wasn't too bad. Although I didn't think Cage was the right man for the part.. looked too Ted Danson with his dodgy wig on, and too old to be Jonny Blaze. They should've just stuck with the guy who did the young Jonny stuff. Some of the action scenes were nicely done. Lashing the bike around the skyscrapers etc. Villains were a bit too panto buffy for my liking. Wasn't sure whether the Elvis pointing was something Cage added in himself, but it was like seeing him from Wild at Heart all over again, only with more chains and flame.. and a raggedy ass wig. Everytime he "lit up" on command towards the end, I wanted to shout out "Flame on!".. Spawn is much more sinister than Ghost Rider though. Didn't quite understand why the cowboy Ghost Rider from many a moon ago had to ride with him to the cemetry. He knew the way. But it did set up a nice shot of bike and horse all a flame riding into the distance together. Now he's got this out of the way, lets get MJS back to doing Daredevil 2 shall we? ;)

Conquerclub.com

Imagine online Risk, with a full mechanism behind it for tracking your friends, for joining new games, and for ranking your progress. Once you've imagined this, then take a look at http://www.conquerclub.com. Whilst not acutally stating that this is Risk, presumably for copyright reasons, this is the nearest thing you'll get to web based Risk on a large scale. Theres the classic maps and tweaked classics, but there are a number of specialist maps with some unique play inside of them. There are also a few modes of gameplay that deviate from your standard Risk, but add a lot to the enjoyment. Assassin is one of my favourite, where the winning condition is to eliminate a specific player from the map, if you can do this, then you've won the game. All other players have separate targets and it becomes a game of bluff and elimination rather than the usual fortify and conquer. The games can be set up to play freestyle, basically realtime almost, where the last player to take their turn ticks over the round. If you've got other players hotseating then this can be a fast and furious session of speed Risk. There is also the mechanism for sequential play, where players take their turn, and each player has up to 24 hours to complete their go, these games can be much more slower paced and well thought out, and are ideal for the lunchtime at work sessions.

You can sign up to Conquer Club for free, and have up to 4 games on the go at any one time. However, you can't initiate games. Paying a small fee per annum, roughly about 10 quid, allows you to participate in any number of games, and also set games up for private play with your friends. Well worth the entrance fee, if you ask me.

Excellent Risk based gaming site, very affordable, with hours of play ahead of you. Top marks. It makes playing Risk cool again.

Dreamlords

http://www.dreamlords.com

I bought into the Dreamlords game, you can pull the client and pay 19 odd euros and off you go. The idea of lunchtime web based management, readying yourself for evening 3d play really appeals to me. Sort of keeping the enthusiasm pot on the boil throughout the day. The web client is nicely done, if a little slow to respond. The 3d RTS client though is a bit rough around the edges (and I'd previously decided not to buy the game based on the fact it looked like another rough around the edges RTS game - and I've bought far too many of those in the past). I want to like it. But the first few missions/quests have been quite tedious. And many of the encounters on the starting map, are exactly the same. So the grind is there. If you want an MMO-ism. I've just got to the point where I can have some different units, but getting your cities off the ground seems to be a slow process. Being dumped into a guild by default was a bit of a shock, mainly because most of the guild spoke italian and not english. I've still got some hope left for this game, and a months play paid for, I intend to delve deeper... but I'm not sure it will ever climb out of the doldrums of curiosity rather than soar to the heights of Planetarion.

Fantasy Grounds

I spent a week or two in preparation, building a character from scratch, levelling her to level 9 and trying to fathom the myriad of spell combinations I was allowed. I assembled a portrait, attempted to conjur a token for her to be used in game, using Neverwinter Nights 2 screenshots, or ones from the Vanguard beta, trying to capture a believable top-down view of a female dwarf in a state of relaxed readiness, with a two handed bastard sword clutched tightly in her hand.

The day arrived, and sat amongst a glut of player handbooks, PDF files, web sites and character sheets, I wound myself up into a state of frothy panic. The last time I did proper pen and paper roleplaying was when I was in my early teens. About 20 odd years ago. And even then the Dungeon Master (DM) had coaxed most of the numbers and details out for me. So my Dungeons and Dragons experience was very rusty to say the least. Obviously I've played many an RPG since, PC based mainly, Massive Multiplayer a-plenty. But you see a lot of the mechanics of combat and spellcasting are all done for you. You learn the progression paths, but you don't know the numbers down to the modifiers. Or at least I don't. So, here I was, invited into a long standing campaign (the players involved had been playing together for around a year, every week), with only a vague grasp of some of the intracacies of the process. Once again, panic took over, so much to learn, so much to remember, so much confusion. Just calculating my Base Attack Bonus became a quagmir of anxiety. My main concern was turning up, and being unprepared, coming across as a bumbling old fool without the first clue of playing a pen and paper game. I didn't want to upset their flow, with my ineptitude.

Luckily, I should have remembered the key fact that the DM is there to coach his players who are unsure, to help them along, and during the myriad of processes he was involved with, he managed to throw some tips and information my way to keep me on the correct path. About 30 minutes into the game, with our introductions and story settings in place, I'd found my stride. The off-the-cuff-banter is where I like to think I shine. I love waxing flowery about a storyline, and interacting in character. Thats my thing. The combat and character progression is there to serve the situations and interactions rather than become the main focus to the game. So with very little in the way of number crunching or dice rolling, we'd set off on a journey and the characters had already formed bonds and alliances that could become the stories in themselves. I thought to myself, "after many years trying to find this sort of experience in numerous MMO's, all failing to some extent, this is where my Holy Grail lies". I guess its sort of like masturbating with your imagination. Where theres enough time to soak in situations and react in a thoughtful and well versed way. Even the action can go at the pace of the story. That's not to say it was taken at a pedestrian pace, theres plenty going on, it's just you have your turn, and you can make it as brief or as elaborate as you want. The emphasis is on you, to create something from what is available. That's what I love.



The Fantasy Grounds (FG) client performed very well, with its lifelike representation of a tabletop, with the rollable dice, and the reference documents, and maps and even top-down miniature like tokens. You can propose movement, by dragging your token to where you want to be and the DM approves it, so it does represent quite a communal tabletop. Very impressive indeed. Your character sheets are all stored on the server, but have local copies for you to view. You drag modifiers direct from the character sheets to add to your dice rolls. Your dice are as close a representation to the physical die that I can imagine. Just roll them onto the chat box to have your result plus modifier included in the displayed result. You can setup attack modifiers in your hotbar and just drag them onto the modifier stack, you can setup common rolls (without using the dice) by entering them as a command, and dragging the command to the hotbar. You can write notes on a notepad and then share them with all the other players. Very useful for a brief paragraph describing your character, if you are new to the party. The chat modes are there for in character, out of character and action/emotes. Allowing you to finely tune and embelish your movement and attack actions with descriptive text, along with mood and emotives. You can even draw on the map (if the DM allows it) to explain something to the group, or show where an area of effect spell may land. Tokens are easily scaled to the maps and they follow the scaling when the map is zoomed. Character portraits and supporting story documents are all shared via the client effectively. I'm looking forward to the upcoming release of version 2.0 of the FG client, with its updated interface and new functionality.

By the end of the evening, after 4 and half hours of play (with about half an hour of preparation beforehand) we'd brought two parties of adventurers together, introduced each other, and formed some bonds across the divide from new players and old players. We'd set off on a journey through an underground labyrinth in the hope of reaching a dark elf stronghold to thwart the plans of a Vampire there who was building an army to opress the surrounding lands. In the caverns we'd encountered a horde of trolls who we had to defeat, and then found that they were only servants to a wyrm. Defiant yet terrified our party was stood facing off against a dragon, when we had to close the session, till next week. As you can tell, I'm still buzzing with the excitement generated by the game. And I'm much more at ease with the idea of throwing a few dice to keep the adventure ticking over.

R6V: Looking Good

With the wonder of the Xbox Vision web cam, you can plaster your face (and your brothers) on the special ops team in Rainbow Six Vegas, and play through the story in co-operative mode. Top dollar! Something about seeing yourself and your bro work your way through the terrorist infested building.