Games I should have played in the past: Sid Meiers Railroads

So as part of Direct2Drive's "we're 5 years old huzzah!" festival I bought myself a guilty pleasure: Sid Meiers Railroads. Or did you already get that from the post title?

I'm a bit of a sucker for empire builder games and when this first came out a while ago I was oh so tempted. So when the opportunity to get it for a fiver came up I was already playing it before I typed up any of my "look at these deals!" posts.

The mechanics are a little different from games like transport tycoon or a-train so it took me a little while to get used to building rail track straight through towns and cities! Everything just moves aside because, as the game states: "Rail Is King!"

As usual it's very much "supply and demand" thinking and building the right network to connect the right facilities and towns to meet the game goals. Oh goals, how I've missed you in all these casual games I've been playing lately! Anyway, some of the goals are pretty hard to achieve early on especially if you choose to play with AI's. That's the other thing - you don't have to play against AI's, you can just enjoy laying track and making the perfect network if you want!

The music bugged me a bit, I'm not too much of a fan of the "I'm a-workin' on the raiiiil-roooaad" type music, which the sound track sounds very much like to me. Perhaps it is just me, but I far prefered the jazzy sounds of transport tycoon, then again this is set in a far earlier era.

The trains are detailed nicely, for some reason I really loved the ancient looking trains that were more like one of those man-powered rail carts with the levers. If you need to start these depends on the map you play but it doesn't take long before the more traditional looking steam engine makes an appearance and it's worth upgrading asap! What is pretty cool is that you get the opportunity to buy upgrades that enable your trains to corner quicker, brake better, build cheaper bridges and all sorts. You have to bid against the AI players if they're around so be picky. You can usually tell which of the tech is really worth going for.

Basically if you're a fan of rail network games and have not bought this yet then, well you're as mad as I am. Especially now it's at this price.

Click here to visit direct2drive's £5 deal on Sid Meiers Railroads(uk only unfortunately!)

Direct2Drive turns 5 - Week 4

A slightly less disapointing week in terms of offerings this week!

Most notable for me is the inclusion of Defense Grid: The Awakening, one of my favourite Tower defence games of late. As well as having plenty of levels, great visuals, an interesting soundtrack and lots of replayability via level challenges, it has some of the best voice acting ever. The AI computer is just very entertaining and makes the game for me. I'm not sure if I spent more time with this or Plants Vs Zombies, but it's a close call I'm sure!

Aside from that there's World Of Goo which I'm slightly less enthusiastic about. It's a great game, well polished and looks great, but I think it was a little over-hyped before I got to it. I think my major issue was this: there's a thin line between games and art, and this went too far over that line to be fun. On the other hand the developers obviously have a good, if slightly twisted, sense of humour and it shines through the game like sun rays through translucent goo.

Lastly, but hardly leastly, is the fantastic empire builder/rts mix: Sword of the Stars which I've spent many hours on over the last year. It's a great one for really long lan parties which is great because when you get further into a multiplayer game you can often do your upkeep in a couple of seconds, then alt-tab out to do something else while other players get on with the rts side of it. I know a lot of people who have this with the 3 add ons however, so it might be worth going for that instead however, if you're never going to play against others it's not really worth it, just get this cheaper version so you can say you've played it!

Again they seem to have most of the previous games at their discount prices still so if you missed Bioshock or SaintsRow 2 or Sid Meiers Pirates in previous weeks, you can still get them for a fiver while this deal is running!

Click here to visit Week 4 of the Direct2Drive turns 5 event!

A Mortal Deal for Immortal Defense

Ok I really can't come up with decent blog post titles, but I really wanted to get this done quick before the deal ends - it's only for one day!

You can get the wonderfully weird and glowy Immortal Defense (Click here to my review) for a mere $3 which for the amount of gameplay is probably the biggest bargain for a tower defense game this year!

To get the discount all you need to do is use code: BMCN000H7 when checking out.

This is a one day offer so what are you waiting for, click here now!

They've also mentioned that their latest work in progress Saturated Dreamers is looking for more backers. Check that out here

Music Makes The Game: The Days of Dos (part 1)

I got my first IBM compatible in 1996, it was a Cyrix 586 with 8mb of Ram and a 256mb hard drive. Back then the important statistic there was the 8mb of Ram, which some of the latest games really needed! And I was oh, so proud of it. It wasn't long before the hard disk space became an issue, but that's another story.

So although Windows 95 had appeared, not that many people were using it yet. Dos with Windows 3.1 was still the popular configuration - after all, who needed direct X eh?

My friend down the road had already had a PC for a few years so I'd been spending a lot of time down there playing games such as Sim City and Doom. But now I had my own and I felt unstoppable! I already knew which game I was going to buy first...

New Wallpaper - Borderlands Style!

I recently spotted a thread on the Gearbox forums where someone had made some fantastic Borderlands themed Wallpaper. I asked him if I could share it with everyone here, and since he's keen on the game being a success (aren't we all?) he very kindly agreed!

I picked my favourite 3 (well, I thought they were all great, but I didn't want to pinch all of them!) and have added them to the wallpaper section of the site.

They're all currently in 1440x900 resolution, but I'm sure people of your calibre will be able to resize if necessary.

Here's a preview of the Lilith one:

(Am I allowed to say how miffed I still am at the PC version delay? No? Ok then...)

It's Casual Corner!

Even though most of the week I was busy playing East India Company I did get the chance to try out some of the new time management games on BigFishGames.

In all honesty I'm a little addicted to them but I can't spend all my time reviewing these as they're all quite similar and, well you'd probably rather not read about them all!

However, I'm sure some of you are interested, so I'll probably make Casual Corner a regular blog feature. If nothing else then it satisfies my need to talk about every game I play!!

I'm going to try this "After the Jump" thing, so here goes...

Read more After the jump

Competition Reminder! Win a free copy of "Creeper World"

For those that haven't entered yet, don't forget there's a free to enter competition to win a copy of the awesome independent strategy game: Creeper World.

All you have to do is answer a simple question about the game that can be found by reading the review or by downloading and playing the game itself.

It's quite a new twist on the whole tower defense / area control idea and should at least be given a go. There's a web version in development so soon you'll be able to give it a try without even downloading it (I'll post when that's up).

Personally I enjoyed this so much i even wrote a tips and tactics guide for it.

Anyway, don't forget to enter! Click here to enter!

More Claptrap...

Oooh, even with the delays for Borderlands it's still something I'm looking forward to.

So when twitter announced the new "Claptrap Episode", I was there like a shot! I didn't think it was *quite* as good as the previous one although there were a couple of fantastic moments. The point is though that they obviously care enough about the game to put the time into doing this. The only other developers I can think who do this are Valve and Popcap, and any game I've seen with this kind of viral marketing (can you call this that?) have been fantastic.

A trend that I hope will continue!

Here is the video:



Come on guys, get that PC version out sooner!

Click here to visit the Borderlands site

Oh yes, it's finally here and I'm quite surprised that it is!

Popcap have now released their web based version of Plants Vs Zombies so now there really is no excuse to not have played this at least once.

PvZ is one of my favourite games of the year, probably one of my highest given scores of the year, and the best casual game I've played in years!

If you've not tried this yet, it's basically a tower defense game with a bit of a twist. You're basically building a wall of plants that shoot or explode and such to defend against a zombie onslaught. Fantastical!

Click here to play it - immediately!

(Thanks to RPS where I saw this first!)

Uk people -> EA Arrives on Steam - 10% off some fantastic titles!

Can't not post about this as they're such bargains! Not a huge post though as this is only for UK peeps

You've got Mirrors Edge, Mass Effect, Dead Space (still need to play that) and Red Alert 3, all with 10% off each.

That means you can get Mirrors Edge or Mass Effect for just over a tenner.

Check them out here!

Huge *sigh* - More PC game delays

There are a number of things that nark me, and release dates is one of them.

Ghostbusters the video game for instance has been out for months for Xbox360 and PS3. It's still not out for PC until November this year. The same happened with Mirrors Edge.

The same excuses appear time and time again, usually compatability problems and different gfx chipsets supposedly doing unexpected things. I'm sure there's probably a certain amount of truth to this, but even so you can't help feeling that publishers and possibly even developers don't always give the PC the love it deserves.

Borderlands, one of my most anticipated games of the year has now joined this list with an admittedly much smaller delay, but still noticable for Eurpoean PC gamers waiting for it. The release announcement is basically as follows:

"Borderlands will be released on the 20th of October!"

"Oh, unless you're in Europe, in which case it'll be the 23rd of October"

"Oh, unless you're a PC user, in which case it'll be the 30th of October!"

So getting on to two weeks later than American Xbox users get to play it? What did us European PC Users ever do to gearbox to deserve this?

Again the reasons stated are "Optimisation" - at least for the 6 day PC delay. What's strange about this is there's currently nothing official on the gearbox forums or site, this is just second hand news from IGN.

It's still a mystery why PC users get messed around so much. We all know it's because publishers are shit scared of piracy ruining their sales, to which unfortunately they probably have a point. I just wish they'd be honest about it!

Unfortunately for me, this means re-arranging days with other people to play it. Normally it wouldn't be an issue, but with a game containing 4-player co-op getting everyone at home on the same day takes some doing!

East India Company: Review and Tips/Tactics guide!

Glad I managed to get the time to play this so much recently, otherwise I'd probably have missed my earlier deadline this week (lots on over the next few days!)

So, do you fancy building a fleet of galleons and sending them to the indies to pick up lots of cargo, then fight your way back through pirates to get back to London (or whatever home port you choose)?

Then East India Company is going to be the game for you. It's basically a more detailed version of the Anno1404 trade system, but with less emphasis on city building and more on dynamic trade prices and ship battles.

I thought it was...well, You'll just have to click here and find out!

Down Boy! A Guard dog in TF2?

As a pretty massive TF2 fan (even though I've not played for weeks now!) I was completely taken by surprise when I noticed yesterdays "Twit" from Valve showing an aparently fake "Team Update" page. It featured a new character called the Guard Dog and as far as these fakes go, I was almost taken in!

I mean, just took at him! What a splendid beast, I'm sure you'll agree!

If Valve hadn't sent another "twit" out a few minutes later saying it was a joke then I'd still be wondering if it was real or not, despite not being able to click on any of the links shown on the page. I especially liked the achievements such as the "Loch Ness Monster" or the rather disgusting "Go Lassi-ed"

Then, even more surprisingly the TF2 blog now shows a "patent pending" letter for the Guard Dog character - could this mean we might actually see this in the game?

I think it's really great that Valve has kept TF2 updated for almost 2 years now. I would argue that the number of changes made to TF2 in that time are far more than the differences between L4D1 and 2, but that's for another post perhaps.

I hope it continues, but I also hope they get inspiration for Portal 2 and HL2 Episode 3 too.

Deals and Ordeals

I'm sure you've been keeping an eye on the deals going around, but if not here's a couple of good deals I've seen recently...

Direct2Drive turns 5, week 3!
Actually this is the most disapointing week so far!

While I was soo hoping I'd be able to jump up and down and point at a £5 copy of mass effect, this has not appeared in the offer like I'd hoped. Instead you've got "Eve Online", "Grand Theft Auto 3" (ok I can give them this one) and "Elven Legacy" to name a few. This is pretty disapointing in comparison to the previous weeks deals.

There were a number of really great RPG's that are about the right age for this deal and, well...it's not my place to complain possibly...no, wait - it is! After Bioshock and Civ4 this is just rubbish.

Anyway, perhaps MMORPGs are you thing, in which case why not take a look...

Gamersgate - Completely Unreal?
Gamersgate, my new favourite games portal, recently let me know about their "Unreal Complete" bundle.

If you've not played any of these it's a flippin bargain in my opinion. Especially since you get Unreal Tourney 3 in there as well as all 4 previous incarnations of the series.

Thinking about it I first played the original Unreal over 10 years ago now (blimey) with fantastic music from Alexander Brandon and the likes, there's a really magical bit before you reach the castle from the title screen.

Unreal tournament is, of course, the original title from where most "Head Shot", "Dominating", "Monster Kill!" samples come from. Not many people play it online I daresay these days (I wouldn't dare venture out these days with all the aimbots) but for a lan it was great fun.

I highly recommend checking this out and, at the very least, getting Unreal for it's landmark historic value.

Check it out here!

Strategy First? Who now?
Ok I'll admit, I've not played any of these games except for the ghost mansion one, which was ok but not great.

However if these games are any good it looks like a neat deal. You can get all of the strategy first titles on Good Old Games with a discount of 50% if you buy them all!

The great news here is that you can still get the deal even if you've already bought some of these from gog. Apparntely anyway.

It includes games I have at least heard of, like "Sacred Gold", "Patrician 3" (I think I played the first one of this series) and "Jagged Alliance 1&2".

If this sounds like your sort of thing, take a look here!

Are you feeling Gratuitously Impulsive?
Impulse are doing a pre-order discount on Positech's latest simulation game: Gratuitous Space Battles. You can save a couple of quids on this ship building focused space battle game.

I've been playing it for a while (beta version if you pre-order from Positch Directly) and it's a lot of fun. I was still a little disapointed that there was no empire building element (so far, you never know!) but watching the battles really is something else.

There's plenty of youtube material out there if you're curious.

If you want to experience the discount then you can go here

or if you're feeling indie-developer supportive, pre-order it directly from here

And there we go again...
Well plenty to think about there I guess - if only I didn't have most of these already!

Don't forget you can support us here by using the above link to gamersgate to sign up to their site (you don't have to buy anything if you don't want to!) or downloading impulse from this site.

Most of all however, thanks for continuing to visit!

Mad Professor MMORPG?

I wish I had more time to explore this, but I found it a bit difficult and I just never got any good at it.

I was exploring MMORPG's a while back and Golomizer seemed an interesting idea. You create robots (Golems) out of parts you find during your travels. They then fight your battles for you, kind of like a summoning spell.
The art is old skool pixel stuff, but it's kind of nifty because of it. It's free to play and now has quite a dedicated following. They often hold events and there's regular updates and such so it's worth checking out.

My experience wasn't great I have to admit, although I do have my own house...somewhere there...and one day, when I have the time, I'm determined to actually win some battles and train my character up a bit. It's one of those games where you can see the potential, but don't have the time to chase it up.

I know some people have really settled in so I'm prepared in this case to say "It's probably just me..."

200 Posts Reached!

Yes another milestone reached, this is the 200th post on the blog. It's pretty impressive as I never originally thought I'd be able to keep it up with the other site updates.

As well as this, since starting the site there have been 67 game reviews which is quite a few. Even though I've slowed down quite a bit to write in terms of quality rather than quantity, I think I may still reach 100 for the year (Feb 12th 2010)

3 Videos, over 10 articles (I should really do some more of these), 4 game guides, 1 competition (still running!) and lots of developers met. I'm enjoying every minute of it...

Currently there are over 150 people visiting the site per day, about 40 are repeat viewers, so thanks for reading everyone!

Music Makes the Game: Back in the days of the Spectrum...

I know this isn't IBM compatible stuff, but like the Megadrive entry, there's emulators so I reckon I can get away with it! It's terribly "youtube heavy" too, so appologies for that...

Back when I was 8 I had a spectrum, a "128k Spectrum +2" to be exact, with everything neatly packed away into the keyboard. In fact, I've still got it!

It sits on a shelf behind me with 2 others I collected, doing nothing other than reminding me how far we've come in 20+ years. Occasionally I open it up (by accident, the screws are missing!) and check out the ancient parts before reminding myself that they are still in use in Russia! (aparantely?)

Anyway, back in those days I played a ton of games. An unbelievable amount. My brother has a huge bin sack full of the tapes somewhere, all of which can be found online these days, but I thought I'd share some of the more memorable games I played, in the form of their music. The Spectrum 48k only had 1 channel sound, but some clever chaps managed to squeeze 2 channels out of it. The 128k had 3 channels which some people managed to get 4 out of! Amazing!

Many games had very limited and basic music and sound back then but there were some that stood out to me.

Firstly, here's Gun Runner by Hewson games back in '87 with quite a catchy ditty:

The game itself wasn't too much to shout about, but I always, always remembered that music.

Next up down memory lane is Dizzy, oh woe is me for the number of Spectrum users who never came across Dizzy (yes, you know who you are!) He was the thinking man's Chuckie Egg, chosing to solve puzzles rather than just running around collecting keys (or whatever it was.)

Here's one of my favourite tunes from the series, from Treasure Island Dizzy (or Dizzy 2 as we called it back then)


Next we have the Spectrum "port" of OutRun the famous racing game that appeared in arcades and nearly every system at the time. This game took ages, and ages...and ages to load on the Spectrum. Oh how we envied disc based computers at the time.

Anyway, this music therefore is a cover of the original as best as the composer could do with the Spectrum sound chip...which isn't too bad!


(I highly recommend looking for the original too!)

Finally, and I'll try not to go too far back in gaming history again on this blog, take a gander at this Amiga music version of "Rainbow Islands". Another game that I had on the spectrum (can't find a decent enough video of just the music) that I always remembered because of the music.



The point I'm making about the music that was in these games is that it's themed and memorable. This is something that's missing from a shed load of PC games these days.

I'm not suggesting every developer runs out to hire Jeremy Soule, or Alexander Brandon, or Nobuo Uematsu and I'm not sure if the problem is that publishers are restricting creative freedom (doesn't sound probable?) but I've played almost 10 different games in the last fortnight and I can't recall any of the music right now.

I hope this doesn't continue!

You can tell it's that time again...

Yes, the decorations are starting to appear in the windows, it's started to get a little cooler (in England at least?) and, probably the most obvious indicator these days, Game Developers have started to release their latest titles for the PC.

In the last few days I can name at least 5 titles I'm interested in - not that I'll get them all, but I would if I had the time to play them!

Batman - Arkham Asylum
This is one I probably will end up reviewing sooner rather than later.

The (fantastic) demo featured both action and stealthy bits, but I've heard the main game contains more of the fighting rather than sneaking around. It's a shame about that really as I prefered the sneaking, it gave more opportunities to do things my way. Saying that I've also heard that this doesn't matter and that it's awesome anyway.

Plus I want to hear what tenuous explanation there is for Batmans equipment upgrades - I'm sure it'll be plausable...

Mini Ninjas
I enjoyed the demo to this too, but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to stick with it til the end if I was to play the main game.

It sure is cute, but it's nothing especially new and the "We've dumbed this down so it works on any system" feeling really shows. Normally that isn't too much of an issue, but when if feels like you should be "button mashing" instead of "key mashing" (or mouse mashing) then it starts to feel wrong.

Saying that I did like thinking that this was made by the same developers who made the Hitman series, since Mini Ninja's style couldn't be further away from Hitmans.

Majesty 2
This almost-rts looks pretty interesting. I've not played the first, but the premise here is that while you concentrate on the building of your city, the units take care of themselves?

I believe you set rally points where your units will head for and decide to do what's best when they arrive (time for a cuppa?) Since I'm rubbish at RTS tactics this might be one to try out! I always prefered the building and resource management side of things, that's why I love tower defence games so much!

For some reason this one doesn't look as good as the screenshots to the original? Perhaps that's just me (it usually is) but I'll be checking this one out too at some point.

Madballs in Babo
Ok, this looks nuts and aparently (if the description is to be believed) took the Xbox 360 world by storm.

I've not heard of it before but it's some kind of shooter game featuring spherical characters. No idea if it's any good, but my curiosity is aroused. Aside from that, any game with co-op mode needs to be checked out, especially with those screenshots...

Wait a second, is that an eyeball with a cape?

Be Richer! At least in the game...

Put up the review of "Be Richer" yesterday, I know some people have already noticed it!

It's not the best city builder game I've played - but it's kind of like the city building in Anno 1404 without the ship trading and on a smaller scale.

And I know this is the second game in a row I've reviewed from BigFishGames, I'll be doing something far different for next week, believe me!

Anyway click here to read the review of "Be Richer!"

New Blog Layout!

Finally I found a bit of time to update this annoying blog template. I've not been happy with it for months but always thought the content was more important (which of course it is!)

But I really wanted it to follow the rest of the site design and, wow, Blogger is unforgiving about sloppy XML (which is the only kind I know.)

There's still some work to be done such as annoying gaps in the borders and such, and the text formatting is still not right. But I'll get to that soon enough. The important thing is that it looks a lot better than it did.

With all the new stuff that's coming onto the site soon I'm doing another web-template push and this is all part of that. Let me know if you see anything that looks especially wrong!

Are you ready to be thrilled? Then get ready for "Volvo: The Game!"

Ok you probably won't be thrilled, and with good reason too.

A publicity game by the Volvo car manufacturer is unlikely to excite anyone but the most enthused Swedish motoring fan.

Saying that the game is free and a bit of racing fun. It's a little advert heavy but since it's a promotional game that's the sort of thing you expect.

Some of the physics in there bothered me a little, especially if you end up tapping another car. The engine rev sound was a tad annoying too. But then, for a free game it's pretty nifty.

I don't feel I can go into too much detail with it, mainly because I'm rubbish at it! But if you're a racing game fan then this might be a fun distraction!

Go have a go here (requires sign up to GamersGate)

Zuma's revenge demo was...

Disapointing. (I'm not sure what my issue is with games this week, I'm having no luck at all!). I've not played the original Zuma but I thought I would give Zuma's Revenge a quick go.

Compared to the other Popcap games where a bit of forward thought and intelligence plays a part, Zuma really is quite the mindless match-3 game played on a track rather than a grid. It's one of those panic inducing games where nearly the whole experience involves a last ditch effort to get through the level alive. This is fine occasionally but I'd like to think some early, well placed moves would have made things easier for me in the long term.

It's not all bad I guess, as the presentation is nice, it's very playable and not too frustrating for such a game. But turning a ball spitting frog around to wipe out a line of balls just wasn't as exciting as promised, so I won't be getting the full thing.

Also what bothered me was the aztec theme; I've never been a fan to be honest. There must be a market for it obviously as the original Zuma was a huge hit as I'm sure this will be for them.

I really enjoyed their Plants Vs Zombies and Bookworm Adventures 2 this year, so it's surprising this didn't have the same effect on me. I guess it's "all part of the plan" to release a diverse catalogue.

I do think Zuma's Revenge is a little overpriced for what it is though...

Anyway, you can get the demo from the popcap website here

More Direct2Drive £5 deals this week

I feel duty bound to report even more deals via Direct2Drive - mainly because Bioshock (which is barely 2 years old) is on offer for a fiver. That's a pretty barmy deal, especially if you've not got (or worse, not played through) this landmark game.

It wasn't the best game engine (modified Unreal2 or 3 I believe?) and the game mechanics were not the best (was there much balancing there?) but the story was fantastic, with one of the greatest plot twists ever.

Also on offer are Saints Row 2, Sid Meier's Pirates and many other action titles. They really are good deals for any britts - the best part is that last week's deals are still on offer too!

Go check em out here!

It would be a funny old world if we were all alike...(Braid)

I have to keep saying this to myself while I play this game. I really didn't get on with it at all. I'd tried the demo a while back and with the special offer on Steam last weekend I thought I'd get the full thing to give it the once over.

I can't even manage to do that!

Frustrating game mechanics are common place in platformers, but with Braid I just completely lost interest after the 4th or 5th time based puzzle.Yes yes, it's a very clever "rewind" mechanic and the scenery is quite pretty and I'm sure the music would sound great if I wasn't forced to listen to it backwards every few seconds but...I just didn't care. The characters don't have much character to them, for a game compared (for obvious cloning of bad guys) to the Mario franchise there was just an empty void of personality.

It was kind of like someone did a wonderfull oil painting of Mario, but made him French instead. And then they thought "Y'know, we should scan these in and make our own platform game from them and no one will ever know..."

I'll come clean and say I have no idea about the history behind the game, nor the main man behind the dream, but after playing it for about an hour today and getting progressively frustrated at the horribly disjointed gameplay I won't be running to find out.

Mr Jones' Graveyard Shift: Review up!

I try my best to try out more unusual titles sometimes. The ones you hardly hear about that might be quite good.

So when I saw this game advertised on BigFishGames I thought it would be at least worth a quick go. While Mr Jones' Graveyard Shift is quite a literal title, ironically most of the game takes place during daylight.

Aside from this however I thought it was...well, you'll just have to read on to see what I thought!

Click here to read the review of Mr Jones' Graveyard Shift

Eeek - I'm a recovering game-a-holic! (Mass Effect)

I've been a little less attentive on the site than I would have liked over the last few days.

That's because my bargain game from last weekend has consumed nearly every ounce of my gaming time. How can time be measured in weight you might ask? Because this game is very heavy. (does that work? ah who cares)

Mass Effect is simply the best RPG I've played for years and it's amazing it's taken me so long to get around to playing it. It combines two genres (as many of my top 20 games do) and has that "epic" feeling that only some games can provide. That feeling that the fate of the galaxy truely is in your hands and that you really, really can't screw this up or else you're all in big trouble!

My only critisism would probably be the occasional cheesy dialogue line and the far too obvious StarWars paralels near the end. But when a game makes you proud to be the character you're playing it can only either mean it's a fantastic feat of interactive story telling - or you're having some kind of identity crisis...I hope it's the former!

I was going to write a review of it but there's only so many ways you can write: Buy It Now - I think I'd be far too biased and I know my love of dialogue heavy games isn't shared by everyone!

Nevertheless, this is my opinion and anyone who liked the following games (
Deus Ex, Knights of the old republic, Freelancer, Baldur's Gate) should go and get this one immediately. You can then come and wait with me, huddled in a blanket under my pc desk clutching my copy of the game and wait for the sequel which is due in January 2010.

Direct2Drive.co.uk turns 5, man alive!

Direct2Drive.co.uk turns 5 and with this anniversary of IGN's retail wing they are offering games for £5 with different ones every week. This week it's "Their Favourite" games (not sure how any empire earth games end up being favourites, but then again I've only played a bit of one of em). The next few weeks however are going to feature Action, RPG and Independent titles so I'm quite interested to see what comes out in that sale!

I'm not a giant fan of D2D but I do use it when it's cheaper than steam as I'm totally driven by saving money and special (or not so special) deals. Tales of Monkey Island were cheaper there for instance and they do some cool bundles occaisionally - oh and that Sonic collection thing was good.

So it's probably worth keeping an eye on this just to see what games pop up.

You can take a look by clicking here

There are still bargains to be had in shops!

I was in our local gamestation yesterday looking for DS games. The DS is the only console I buy for these days and I'm a big fan of the Professor Layton games (new one soon woot!)

While I was there I decided to take a peek at the PC section for a change. The "new" section provided the usual dissapointments in terms of cost or anything I would actually be interested in getting. Mostly MMORPG's and football manager type games.

However the pre-owned section was a different story! My bargain of the week was a second hand copy of "Mass Effect" for only £5! This is pretty good considering it still costs £15 on Direct2Drive. I was considering their Mass Effect 1&2 bundle, but this has saved even more money.

I've never played it before but I've heard a lot about it and, from my first stumblings about in the game, I'm enjoying it a lot right now.

The problem is, this kind of bargain is dying out because of online distribution. People can no longer sell their games on for lower prices once they're bored of them. This is a shame because what do you think people use the money they get from sold games for? To buy new ones of course!

Of course one of the selling points steam and the like make to developers/publishers is that there is no reselling. It's not really in the best interests of the publisher as they probably imagine people would buy at the current price. I'm not convinced that's always the case, or even often the case. I'm positive some kind of second hand marketplace would be a great idea on steam, they would surely keep some of any total transactional value (say 10%) and the game would be transfered to the other person.

Of course getting distribution systems to have a fair system for this is probably more trouble than it's worth for them which is why we've not seen it yet. But I would definitely buy a second hand copy of something like Crayon Physics or COD4 from steam for example. Plus it would be a good indication of how well games hold their value over time.

Anyway, my point for now is that while retail stores may not always be best for new titles, they've still got some pretty good second hand deals going on! Just watch out for install limits!

What a load of claptrap...

I think everyone who knows me knows I'm hyped about Borderlands.

It just speaks to me on so many levels. Not literally of course, I don't have that many levels.

But Gearbox is obviously a very talented game studio and if we look at their track record it's hard to imagine we're not in for a real treat on October 20th (the release date). 4 player co-op (but you can play any number up to this so it's a single player game too) with a big story, loads of guns, not too many numbers and plenty of action; Borderlands just looks fantastic.

And it looks like the viral marketing engine at Gearbox has just moved up a...well you know. They've released a video of the "loveable" claptrap trying to talk about the making of Borderlands.

It's not quite "Zombies on your Lawn" but it's pretty good nonetheless. Here, take a peek!


There have also been some youtube vids from PAX09 which are looking very promising.

This is my biggest hope for this pretty good year for games, so it had better not let me down! Do you hear me Mr (Randy) Pitchford?! The disapointment of L4D must not be repeated!

*Ahem*

Music makes the game: Total Annihilation

Total Annihilation was one of the first (if not the first) Real Time Strategy game to fully use 3D rather than a 2D based engine. It was also quite unique in it's unit/structure building compared to previous RTS games. In TA you could assign multiple builder bots to any building drastically increase the speed it was completed (depending on resources) - but you could also reclaim resources from destroyed units as well as trees and rocks. It was quite revolutionary at the time however many RTS games since have adopted these game mechanics.

However my favourite part of the game was the incidental music, written by none other than Jeremy Soule. This is one of the earlier games he worked on by he went on to write the music for games such as Dawn Of War (only the first one), Guild Wars, Knights of the Old Republic and the Eldar Scrolls series. He also wrote the score for Total Annihilation's spiritual successor: Supreme Commander.

He's often chosen because of his inventive and film like orchestral arrangements. Some have dubbed him the next John Williams, and that reputation is not unjustified! You only have to listen to one of his works to understand just how talented this guy is.

Here's a piece from Total Annihilation, which is where I first heard his stuff 12 years ago!


You can visit Jeremy's home page by clicking here! (plenty to listen to here also!)

Fancy a Free Football game? Can you sign up to a newsletter?

New Star Games have announced that in their newsletter they are offering a free version of Sensational Soccer (which is worth $9.99).

Click here to visit their website.

You have to sign up, but I'm sure you could always cancel again if you didn't want to keep receiving stuff - although it looks like there's a further $5 to save on any game(?) if you stay on.

If you're not sure who New Star Games are then you should check out my reviews of New Star GP, New Star Soccer and Super Laser Racer

If this Sensational Soccer is anywhere near as good as these others then it'll be worth getting!

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!

Just put up my review of AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA, the base jumping game from Dejobaan. Another long review (for me) so I really don't think I've left anything out! I played it the whole day yesterday and I've still got 2 levels left to complete - but scraping together enough "teeth" to complete the game is tricky!

Click here to read the AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA review!

Also, don't forget the Creeper World contest on at the moment!

Time to relax: Droplitz

Something that came out quite some time ago but I never got round to playing was Blitz Games's (not to be confused with the game creation tool) Droplitz.

It's a kind of mix between pipemania (or for you young whippersnappers the hacking game from Bioshock) and that MB Games thing; Downfall (see right).

The idea in Droplitz is to build paths from the top of the board to the bottom before you run out of droplitz that are constantly dripping from the "dispenser" type things at the top.

It took me a while to understand exactly what you need to do, as it's far more of a casual game than it first appears. There's not that much strategy involved aside from thinking ahead to which parts of the board could do with a shake up.

What is nice about it is the visuals and (especially) the music which are organised into themes, such as an irish theme and a chocolate theme. These do add something special into the mix and I found myself wanting to play just with the specific themes.

The concept of the game isn't too impressive however and I struggled to see any lastability for more hardcore gamers.

You can get Droplitz from steam by clicking here - no demo that I can see unfortunately...

Creeper World Contest - win a free copy!

Thanks to the amazing generosity of Knuckle Cracker I can now announce the first competition from PC Games And Reviews where you'll get a chance to win one of 5 free copies of Creeper World!

To enter all you need to do is visit this page (check out the rules of course) and answer the simple creeper world related question.

Click here to visit the Creeper World Contest page

You've got until the 20th of October 2009, so plenty of time but don't forget! A month goes by very quick! As this is a bit of an experiment in terms of the site, I'll be posting entrant figures here. Lets see how it goes!

Oh, and of course, don't forget to visit the Creeper World home page at http://www.knucklecracker.com/!

Fear 2, now with DLC?

Yup unsurprisingly DLC has come to Fear 2. I suspected something like this might happen after the very sudden and unsatisfactory ending of the game.

So you can now get what admittedly looks like a very interesting add on for the low low (cough) cost of £6 on steam. Strangely it's quite tempting because the premise is that you play as a replica soldier (the bad guys) and you start getting conflicting messages from your command.

It feels very much like what Opposing Force was to Half Life (where you were part of the military sent to get Gordon Freeman). Maybe this is really good but I just haven't got the patience to download FEAR 2 again and to pay for this. If you've not got either game yet FEAR 2 is currently on sale with 25% off so you'd get the whole lot for just the price of the main game.

Fear 2 wasn't a very long game so I'm curious to know how long this expansion is. If anyone would care to let me know I'd be very interested!

Aaaahhaahahaah - I don't know the exact spelling!

You might have noticed the deal on steam where you could buy Aaaahahaaaha: A reckless disregard for gravity with a free game thrown in (The wonderfull end of the world).

Unfortunately I wasn't around to tell you (damned holidays) but if you did then you've probably been enjoying the delights of falling to your doom (and absorbing the world) for a day now. I'll be doing a full review of Aaaahaahaha in the next few days, but I wanted to talk about The Wonderful end of the world for a minute.

It's a bit late to do a complete review of this, as most people who are going to get it have got it and completed it etc... but it's still worth mentioning it for those that have not.

The idea is that you walk into objects that are smaller than you to absorb them, each item allows you to grow so you can absorb larger and larger items into your walking mass of household items. Eventually you gorw so large that you can absorb dogs, tables, televisions and then people, sheds, cars, etc...

It's good fun and you get a feeling of power when you can eventually absorb larger items that repelled you before. It is a little disoncerting to see your body being made up of people and cars and beer bottles and computers and, well the whole thing is a little bizare. I guess that's what led it it's popularity and spot on steam.

I especially liked the song they wrote for the menu screen. It's a bit rappy I guess but it works. I was also hoping for some kind of story (agh, I know I know, I can't help myself) but it was just random levels.

I did find myself getting frustratingly stuck on scenery at times. Some gaps between objects look like they should let you through and it doesn't. Slowdowns are common later when there's lots going on but the worst part of that is the timer appears to opperate at a constant speed still! A little unfair methinks.

Still, it's good fun playing as the absorboloth (yay, I stole a name from Dr Who!) and might be worth getting as part of any future deals steam do. But for £6 on it's own it does feel a bit pricey somehow.

Right, back to falling off buildings!

Gratuitous Space Battles! Beta Arrives!

Well I've been waiting for this for months and months now.

Positech games have released the beta version of GSB which you can play if you pre-order now! To pre-order costs $20 (about £15) so how does the beta play hmm?

So far so good!

I was a bit bothered by a multitude of help boxes that appeared as I was getting to grips with it. I'm not one for reading stuff like that, I like to poke at controls until something works and rely on the manual if all else fails. So I managed to design a ship and place weapons and modules in different places (ala Ascendancy/Pioneer) and got a fairly good feel for what did what. I didn't realise I should have added shields to my huge starship however and very soon I was wondering why my brand new sparking cruiser was covered in explosions.

On my second run I got that right and ended up with a powerful, but expensive, cruiser. Knowing exactly what weapons are effective is going to be down to experience I think, the same with the large number of rocket/missile weaponry that's available. It then took a further 2 attempts to get the fleet layout to it's most efficient so that I could defeat the first level! After having watched the battle closely the first few times it dawned on me that I should be focusing my efforts on the centre of the enemy fleet and since they had 2 fairly powerful ships either side, flanking was not a simple possibility. So I put my two biggest ships dead centre and surrounded them with smaller cruisers. Then I used lower level cruisers each end to keep the enemy flanks occupied until the biggest ship had been dealt with. Once the biggun had been destroyed by larger cruiser mopped up the flanks.

It worked a treat and I ended up winning the round! After this you get honour points which allow you to obtain unlockable items to add to your ship designs. I'm saving up for the bigger ones I think...

I'm quite taken with it I have to admit. Not having any control during a battle is quite a change to the norm and you can feel a bit helpless. You have to watch quite closesly to see where the focus of the battle ends up so that next time (if you loose of course) you can adjust your strategy accordingly.

There were a few problems I noticed - overlapping help boxes (some appeared before they should do) and the Escape key seems to bring you out of any screen far too easily (did I miss something there?!) but otherwise this is definitely worth everyone's attention.

Once the first release version comes out I'll be doing a full review and certainly some strategy hints as I just can't resist!

Resistance is...well, you know...

Line Rider 2 on steam soon - this could mean "Fantastic" opportunities!

inXile entertainment have announced (well, not announced exactly, it's just there) that Line Rider 2, the sequel to their popular online browser game will be coming to steam!

Well yes it's a pretty fun looking game, building tracks for a character on a sleigh to fall down and it looks impressive enough. The videos on steam certainly make it look entertaining with that pinball machine level and the editor looks easy enough to use to make other fun levels.

There's not much on there yet in terms of release date (says yesterday right now!) and cost etc... and If you can't stand too many adverts then I don't suggest you visit the site itself (blimey). I know it's all to support the developers but sheesh.

Anyway, the exciting thing for me here is that inXile are the developers of Fantastic Contraption! So this could possibly, possibly mean that Fantastic Contraption (2?) could be coming to steam in the future? Well, that would be nice but I won't hold me breath.

Still it will be interesting to see the details of Line Rider 2 when they get released on the Steam Page

Holiday Over, back on track!

I've been away for a few days and completely forgot to write up any post dated blog posts that I had planned.

So I'll be working on those today along with a new review/walkthrough ready for the weekend.

Plus I have a contest planned so news on that soon hopefully!