DanJW

Well, HL did take the idea from Doom (as have many other things, including Event Horizon, which was pretty much the movie of Doom). You should play that scene again theough and watch out for the details - the demon skull things fly into the monitors, where you can watch them possessing people. Go around and activate the monitors to see the marines faring badly against their new zombie friends. In fact there are lots of little details throughout the game that are easy to miss if you play through it in a dreary "I'm determined not to like this" kind of way. Not sure what I make of this expansion though. Unless it is going to add some major new features besides new weapons and "more of the same", I don't really see the point. I enjoyed Doom3, but there had better be a damn good reason to buy the expansion.

Except that Peter Molyneux said: "We hope to revive the project at a later date". I trust them. If they can, they will. It's just a question of if they can

Well yes, OK, Persia is now Iran, rather than the country next to it, despite the fact that modern borders did not exist then. In terms of the great consumer public, my point still stands. Not that it was even meant that seriously. Sheeesh.

Buy The Bard's Tale. The only other thing I can say is..... DAMN YOU NDA!!!!!!

The question should always be "Am I being cynical enough?"

"Hi, I'm the artistic director, and I'm a smug git" I mean really, who puts their own tat onto a character. The design is modern "tribal", so I don't see the arabic connection. Yeah, great artistic direction there. In fact I fail to see how this new character is at all princely, or indeed Persian (the sunlight and flowing robes, as Bob mentioned). Maybe they are afraid that the american market will shy away from anything associated with Persia (now known as Iraq). I like a bit of darkness in fiction (read some of the later Terry Pratchett books, like Hogfather!). Unfortunately most of the games labelled with it these days contain no such thing. Unless they think the term is a literal description of the use of lighting.

Likewise the old Anglo-Saxon Saimhann is also much cooler than "halloween".

Chris is right, the zombies in 28 days later are not zombies. The word is never used in the film, nor in the marketing. Everyone just identifies it with zombie movies. I think the big change in the depiction of zombies came when the focus moved away from individual zombies that were a source of terror by themself (Frenkenstein) to the zombie epidemic scenario (Night of the Living Dead). The subtexts are completely different. While individual zombies are about fear of madness and death, zombie epidemics are based on the more modern fear of crowds, and of being lost in a sea of faces. As for chopping off infected parts - watch the very beginning of Brain Dead

Sometimes I think there's too much swearing, in what are otherwise serious articles. But I'd feel much worse about asking people to tone it down, because a) I'd feel like a whiny git they wouldn't listen to me anyway c) censorship can fuck off. (In editorials and news, the more informal stuff - that sits far fine with me).

hehe, I think Marek was being ironical. Although... I can imagine a chicken giving a nearby sniper the shifty eyes

I think it counts as an "FPS RPG". There's a few others around, like Deus Ex, obviously, and the upcoming Vampire Masqurade: Bloodlines (which looks ver nice too!). But SS2 is still the scariest game ever.

Meh. The first GoldenEye was one of the most overrated FPSes ever. I don't think a franchise as big as the bond movies is going to try anything remotely interesting in game form. I reckon Bond would work much better as an RPG. And it should be based on Flemings books.

Hmm, looks like it could be good. I'll be keeping tabs on this one methinks.

Playing with the boys eh? So Thumbs is on the viral marketing lists eh? that means we have arrived! Woooo! PS to viral marketers: please visit more, we can always do with a laugh.

You must have been, because all those are in the game (and not just in the pre-demon intro levels). There are in fact lots of "rooms with a purpose", although admittedly there is a large mid-section of the game where they are connected by miles of metal corridor. You may find your comments about lack of human rights and safety (exploding barrels, toxic ooze etc) pretty funny once you get towards the end and keep reading the diaries, as ID have managed to second-guess you. You will find emails from employees complaining about the dangerous arrangements and poorly designed facilities. It might not excuse the level design entirely, but it does make it a lot more amusing.

So I was asked at work to go back to the QA department for a bit and lead a team of testers, as QA are low on experienced staff at the moment. I was pleased when the game turned out to be a high profile upcoming console RPG. It's pretty good, the script and voice acting is the funniest I have heard in quite a while. However, to test the game properly I gave each tester a weapon to specialise in. For some reason I took bows. I don't know why. I have had a liking for bows and arrows in games for ages, since diablo and probably before. Maybe is was Robin Hood stories. Maybe it was reading Lord of the Rings (Legolas was a hell of a lot cooler before he was Orlando Bloom). Cowboys and Indians. Whatever, I like the look of them, and often attempt to make a character using a bow and arrow. But you know what I realised today, as I replayed the same long mission for the third time? Bows suck. I have never played an RPG where they didn't. Designers always assume that the range is going to be such an advantage that they must make the stats and rate of attack as poor as possible to compensate. This of course fails to take into account the enemy AI, which is usually writen as if (see: player) run towards (player) hit (player) And then you die, because your slow rate of attack is constantly interrupted by the enemy with its fast rate of melee attack. Or magic. Or enemy archers. Or your henchman sneezing. Yes, this is pretty realistic - a guy with a bow who suddenly finds himself in melee combat is going to have to draw a blade pretty quick or be screwed. But games always make you choose. If you want to be any good at achery you have to put fewer points into melee. And even if you put ALL of your points into archery it is still going to take four hits to kill an enemy that a meleé character could kill in one. And each of those hits will have a greater pause in between. And what about special abilities? Sword and axe wielders get whirlwind attacks, bashes and parries, dirty fighting, all sorts. Archers always get the same crappy skills: headshot, hail of arrows, maybe a homing arrow. Magic bows can give, flaming arrrows and, uh, lighteneing arrows. Maybe ice arrows or acid arrows if you are lucky. It makes little difference, as they all suck. I can name one game where I made an archer character that eventually became effective: neverwinter Nights expansion Pack 1: Shadows of Undrentide. It included a "prestige class" called the Arcane Archer, that supposedly combined wizard's magic with an archers skill. What it actually did was boost the damage, and added a few more special attacks, thus making the archer archetype playable. This class was pretty restrictive though, only available to multi-classed elves, and it didn't offer any variety once you had chosen it. Just one character out of the many I have played. So why bother including archery in RPGs? Is it for the sake of completeness? The way I see it, either make archery worth playing or drop it. Most of the time the magic user will have a huge variety of ranged attacks that make the archery completely obsolete, as they never miss and do a hell of a lot more damage. Know what I would do? - I'd make arrows deadly. I would make the aiming all important - if you miss you miss, if you hit, the target goes down or is severly incapacitated. A guy with a sword can use it to defend against another guy with a sword, but unless you have a really thick shield and supernatural reflexes, you aren't going to be able to defend a well aimed arrow. Pumping forty arrows into an orc is neither realistic nor is it exciting gameplay. It is boring. So what is the justification for making it this way? Anyone agree? Disagree? I'm mad right now and I need you gently explain this to me, perhaps at the same time patting me on the shoulder and handing me a nice cool beer (extra points if you perform these actions while being female).

Heheh, no it's not Fable, although the little I have seen of Fable's archery system makes me suspect that it also follows the convention of crappiness.

With the recent price cuts the time has finally arrived for me to own my very own 4th gen console (or whatever the hell number we're on now). Now, I really want to want a Gamcube. A bastion from the likes of EA, a japanese square of goodness, with cute games and innovotiveness (?) applenty. Problem is, I don't know if there's much on the Cube that I would play by myself. The Pc has more than enough to keep me engrossed, with it's high end FPS, RTS, and RPG's and online play. My console will be for beating down my friends at weekends, but generally the xbox range of games seem to be more my thang. there is only so much mario franchise and cuteness that I can take. So tell me people, does the Cube hold anything for me? Name some games (besides soul Calibur 2, which i already own for the cube - yes the game is so good that I bought it despite not owning a console to play it on). Or maybe you're more inclined to the xbox, and wish to reaffirm my present leaning. Go!

Don't click that link Ben, don't click that link! too late. I think he clicked it. We're not going to be able to get anything intelligible from him for some time.

I'm not going to choose - I am going to get both. Which first? that I don't know yet. It depends what mood I'm in on payday. If I feel like directing a huge sci fi army and blowing stuff up, with lots of mayhem and carnage and a gritty setting, then Dawn of War it is. On the other hand if I feel like sitting back relaxing while my brightly coloured minions go about their business, only ever lifting a finger to order some more amusing traps or stroke my fluffy white cat; then Evil Genius will be first in my DVD drive.

As an aside, there are fairly substantial rumours that Half Life 2 will include, as an extra, the whole of Half Life (1), converted to the Source engine. Even if the main game sucks total balls, this is reason enough to buy it.

Everyone does know that all pirates be from the West Country. Hailing from Portsmouth and the like, aye. And Yarrr.

Hahah amongst their line-up is Mortal Kombat charcter Mileena. Here's what they say. Now, first of all Kitana sports the blue leotard. Mileena wears pink or purple. Secondly, Mileena is always seen wearing a veil. Know why? because she looks like this yeah, real Playboy material lol

Yes, I think it was just the atomic edition that had the intro. The atomic edition was actually pretty good, it had a whole extra chapter of themed levels like Area 51 (Independence Day), Mission Impossible, and Babeland Themepark (that was a good one ). It was the game that got me playing online (before Quake took it's place). Damn good. And I too have fond memories of struggling with the intracacies of 2.5 D level design

That's quite good. This kid should get an A for whatever creative writing assignment he wrote it for