Star Wars: The Old Republic

Play your part in yet another galactic war in the Star Wars Universe. Star Wars: The Old Republic(SWTOR) is a story rich Star Wars massively multiplayer online role-playing game(MMORPG). It’s all about you and yet you can call on buddies to help you fight the dark/light side.

Release Date

Pros

It is Star Wars.

There is plenty of variety. First of, there are two sides, four classes per side with room to further subclass at higher levels and each subclass has lots of skills to upgrade. There are plenty of quests, enemies, NPCs and the staple of any good RPG, loot.

It is a very large and open role-playing game.

Each class has its own storyline which begins with a long high quality introduction cutscene. Then the story is progressed with quests and conversations with NPCs. From the little bit I have played, I have to say the story is Star Wars excellent.

The quests system is very well done. A part from the main storyline quests, there are tons of side quests and also super difficult heroic quests that pretty much require a group to work together to complete. The storyline quests can also be completed in a group, but I do not know who’s story it progresses or whether it gives the completion status to all involved.

My Logitech G35 detected surround sound from SWTOR, but it sounded very much stereo. I did not hear any surround effects at all. Having said that, all the sounds, speech and music do sound Star Wars good.

When your character reaches level 10, you can enter player versus player(PvP) warzones. This section does not seem to be related to the main game other than you can bring your character in to fight. The warzone plays similar to first-person shooters in that you are on a map and have objectives to complete while whacking as many of the opposition as possible. What is different is that it plays very much like the main RPG part of the game. No need to aim, just click on your target and choose the appropriate action you want your character to take.

The game handles fine with my ping of around 300ms. The long ping does make the game more difficult during the warzone fights, but it is still easier than playing an FPS with 300ms ping.

SWTOR’s game engine is quite clever in that the control mechanics makes it play like an RPG, but the flow and good animations makes it look like an action game. A Star Wars action game at that!

The graphics look excellent. Everything is well detailed and well animated. The battles look very much like Star Wars battles. Maybe, it’s just me, but I do not think SWTOR graphics on this newer PC are as good as S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl on my older PC. SWTOR looks better than every other game I played to date, just not S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

You can get companions that are kind of a cross between the pet in Torchlight and people that join you in Baldur’s Gate. Like the Torchlight pet, you can send your companion to sell all useless loot and you can also equip your companion with new stuff. Like Baldur’s Gate people, they will converse with you now and then, but I am not sure if it has any bearing on the main story. Your companion can also be sent on missions where they get stuff for you. I actually do not know what to do with all the stuff they bring back from missions. Probably have to play deeper into the game to find out.

Cons

The size of the download is 27GB. This download must be done with their custom game client launcher. The usual download speed I get from the web is around 700KB/s, but with their custom client launcher, half the time it would only download at 100KB/s. So it was a very long wait before I could start the game.

There is a lot of walking to be done. This is normal for such a big open world, but it gets quite boring after you have walked the same path many times. There are quick travel points and taxis to take you between places but not enough in my opinion. After playing this, I am so grateful for Oblivion’s many quick travel points, which is pretty much every where.

The music is Star Wars-ish and is there, but does not sound so impacting. They play depending on what events are happening but it just does not give the big Star Wars feel like say Empire at War.

Other Points

The online account security is quite heavy. Not only is there a password, but sometimes you must answer security questions on login as well. There is also some sort of optional physical security key thingy. I am not sure if this is the norm for MMORPGs since this is the first one I have tried.

The game’s interface needs a bit of learning, but once you know what there is and what can be done, it is actually quite easy to use. The complexity is due to the amount things that you can do in the game.

The difficulty of the quests and for getting from place to place is done not just by the level of the enemies but also by them respawning pretty quickly. So you cannot just take your time to pick them off as the old ones will come back.

I usually never mention the cost of a game because some places are cheaper than others. I will say this about SWTOR, you must buy the game then you must pay a subscription fee to keep playing past 30 days. I guess this is the same with most paid MMORPGs.

There are many choices to be made in the game. I see indicators that I am leaning towards the dark/light side. Other than changing a little bit of the story and quests, I have not witnessed any ground-breaking events. Or maybe it is because I have not played the same character and pick different choices.

There is now a free-to-play option with limitations. Having not paid to play the game, I do not know how much these limitations affect the game playing. The website does say the full class story content is available though.

Biases

Reviewed friend’s 7-day free trial version.

I briefly tried out the Smuggler class and the Jedi Knight class but focused mainly on the Imperial Agent class.

I missed out on trying the space battles and visting areas where you can attack and be attacked by random players.

I have played many RPGs before, but this is the first MMORPG I have tried.

I really liked Torchlight, Oblivion and Baldur’s Gate 1, 2 plus expansions.

I also liked Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Lands of Lore 3, Might and Magic 3, 4 and 5.

I did not like Styrateg.

DRM

Being an MMORPG, I am guessing online validation and code entries are the very minimum for DRM checks.

Minimum Requirements (as stated on Buy Star Wars: The Old Republic)

• Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ or better or Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.0GHz or better
• Operating System: Windows XP/Vista/7
• RAM:
  • Windows XP: 1.5GB
  • Windows Vista and Windows 7: 2GB
  • PCs using a built-in graphical chipset are receommended to have 2GB RAM
• Graphics Card:
  • ATI X1800 or better*
  • nVidia 7800 or better*
  • Intel 4100 Integrated Graphics or better*
  • *Minimum of 256MB of on-board RAM and Shader 3.0 or better support
• DVD-ROM: 8x or better

Computer Played On

• Windows 7 64 bit.
• Intel Core i5 2.3GHz
• 4Gb RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M 1Gb RAM
• Conexant SmartAudio with egg speakers or earphones. Or Logitech G35.
• Graphics settings are set to whatever I feel comfortable with playing on this PC. They are usually not set to the highest settings. All screenshots are taken with my settings.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Bioshock

Single player only, heavily story driven first-person shooter(FPS). Your plane crashed into the sea but you survived and swim to a nearby island. On the island, inside a building there is a submarine ball thing that takes you to an under water city where some nasty things have happened. Time to find some guns and shoot some nasty peop… errr things!

Release Date

Pros

The story is very very good. From start to finish it is good all the way.

The graphics are top notch. Even though I have to play with the lowest graphics details, it still looks great.

The main sound effects and the ambient sounds are very good. They really give the game a very good atmosphere. Everything from the gun shots and zapping people with electricity to flowing water and people’s footsteps sound good. The voice acting is also top notch.

Surround sound is evident with the Logitech G35 and it sounds very good.

The Vita-Chambers are a nice little feature that works like save points or check points in other games. If you pass a Vita-Chamber and die later on, you get resurrected in the last Vita-Chamber you went passed. Unlike other games though, the game continues from when you died. So all enemies killed will remain dead and all ammo used will not be refilled. The other difference is, that your health and Eve power is only at half when you are resurrected. Although some people complain that this is cheating, I think it is a fantastic idea that saves you from reloading everytime you die. And for those that complain, there is a very easy solution, DON’T USE THEM.

Has a good assortment of guns, ammunition types and you can also upgrade your guns. The guns also behave as expected with recoil and accuracy differences.

Apart from guns, Bioshock has got this thing got Plasmids. Plasmids are like drugs that you take to give yourself special powers like shoot lightning, start a fire or use telekinesis. You could say it is like taking drugs to get Force(Star Wars) powers.

There is also a good RPG type element in the game. As you progress you can upgrade yourself to be better at certain things like hack machines better or increase overall health or be more resistant to fire.

The AI for Bioshock is quite good. The enemies know how to hide and even go and heal themselves if injured badly. Although good, it is not the best I have seen. Sometimes you can just wait for them and they will keep coming round the same corner and then retreating back when they get shot.

Although there is no tutorial, each feature of the game is introduced slowly as you play through the game.

Cons

There are no cons! Bioshock is just simply brilliant!

Other Points

This is the first game I have played with high level profanity in it. Although it does fit the game well, some people might not like it.

Bioshock is a single player ONLY first person shooter. I do not think this is a bad thing though because it is a very well presented single player first person shooter.

This is not a simple run and gun game. Ammunition is in short supply and there are many things to do like hacking machines, upgrading your self with different abilities and looting dead bodies and containers. You can also used hacked turrets to take care of the enemies which saves your own ammunition.

I read that there are two and a half endings. Why half an ending? Apparently two of the endings are very similar and so does not really make a proper third ending. I have only finished it once so I don’t know what the other one and a half is like.

Biases

Reviewed version 1.1 of game.

I really liked Serious Sam, all the Doom games and Quake 2.

I also really liked Alien Vs Predator, Soldier of Fortune 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky, Rainbow Six, Rogue Spear and Call Of Duty 4.

I also liked Battlefield 1942, Delta Force and Spec Ops 2.

I have not played System Shock or System Shock 2.

I have completed the game once.

DRM

For the Direct2Drive(now Gamefly) version, the game must connect to the Internet to activate on first startup.

Patches

1.1 – Added an option to turn off the Vita-Chambers. Also a field of view fix for widescreen displays, although I didn’t notice any difference. The Direct2Drive(now Gamefly) game now comes pre-patched to v1.1.

Retail v1.1 patch can be downloaded here.

Minimum Requirements (as stated on Gamefly)

• Minimum OS: Windows XP (SP2) or Windows Vista
• Minimum Processor: 2.5GHz Pentium 4 or equivalent
• Minimum Memory: 1.0GB RAM
• Minimum Graphics: Pixel Shader 3.0 compliant video card with 128 MB RAM and floating point frame buffer blending
• Minimum Hard Drive: 7.0 GB free hard disk space
• Minimum Sound: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

Computer Played On

• Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz
• 2Gb RAM
• ATI Radeon X1600 256Mb RAM (laptop version)
• Logitech G35 headset and/or Realtek HD Audio(no idea what model) with Altec Lansing ACS41 speakers or Logitech ClearChat Premium PC Headset.
• Win XP Pro
• Graphics settings are set to whatever I feel comfortable with playing on this PC. They are usually not set to the highest settings. All screenshots are taken with my settings.

Handy Tips

Add -nointro to the Bioshock shortcut to skip the Unreal Engine/Nvidia/2kGames intro videos.

Screamer

An old school simple arcade racer. Just pick a car and race!

Release Date:

October 1995.

Pros:

As they say in the manual, Screamer is a very simple game. At minimum there are only four keys to use when driving in automatic or six keys for manual. Simple to learn but not necessarily easy to win.

There is a good sense of speed in the game. Not as fast as Burnout 3 or Trackmania: Sunrise but it is still quite fast.

There are six different cars to drive and their handling are noticeably different. They have fictional names, but if you know your cars, they are easily recognisable. When you complete the championship, an extra fictional super-ultra-mega car is unlocked.

Being an old DOS game and loading up so fast on current PCs, Screamer makes a good game to give a quick speed fix if you feel the need for speed and are in a hurry.

The game has the usual, single track racing, championship tournament and time trials, but there are also two other race types. The first one is Cone Carnage, where you try to knock down cones to increase your time limit. The second is Slalom, where you try to drive between cones to increase your time limit.

The game stores the top times for each track and you can view the replay of those races. Completing a normal mode race also shows you a replay of your immediate performance.

There are six different tracks and they are varied and well detailed despite the old graphics. Six tracks is not many but when you complete the championship, all tracks can be raced in reverse! To me that is as good as having twelve tracks.

The music was average racing music to me in the beginning. As I played more, the tunes really grew on me. It gives the fast racing feeling.

Cons:

The game randomly crashes!

It is a bit unfair that when you bump into the AI cars, your speed drops a lot, but when they bump into you, it is as if nothing happened. On the up side, I have seen them stack it a few times, which does slow them down.

There is no denying, the graphics look old.

Allowing to play the tracks in reverse is good, but there are no separate records for the best reverse tracks’ times. What is worse is when you score a best time on a reverse track, it actually saves it in the normal track’s records.

Other Points:

The cover image has a picture of the Lamborghini Countach. Wikipedia also says there is a Lamborghini Countach. But everytime I see the car named Shadow, I swear it is a Lamborghini Diablo!

There is a narrator that yells out updates and wise cracks, but if you do not like it, there is an option to turn him off. Note, if you turn him off, you will not hear the “three, two, one, GO!” either.

There is multiplayer, but I never got the opportunity to try it out.

Biases:

Reviewed GOG.com version of the game.

I really liked Test Drive Unlimited, the original Test Drive, Test Drive 3: The Passion, Need For Speed 2, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit(the old one), Need For Speed High Stakes, Need For Speed Most Wanted, Trackmania: Sunrise, Burnout 3 and Gran Turismo 1-4.

I did not like Need For Speed Underground. I haven’t tried the other Need for Speeds.

I have completed the championship.

DRM:

Screamer is DRM free from GOG.com

Minimum Requirements (as stated on GOG.com):

• Windows XP or Windows Vista
• 1 GHz Processor (1.4 GHz recommended)
• 256MB RAM (512 recommended)
• 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended)
• Mouse, Keyboard

Computer Played On:

• Windows 7 64 bit.
• Intel Core i5 2.3GHz
• 4Gb RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M 1Gb RAM
• Conexant SmartAudio with egg speakers or earphones. Or Logitech G35.
• Graphics settings are set to whatever I feel comfortable with playing on this PC. They are usually not set to the highest settings. All screenshots are taken with my settings.

Handy Tips:

For the GOG.com version of the game, To run setup without it crashing, the file dosboxScreamer_setup.conf must be edited.cycles=max must be changed to cycles=140000 or a number around that range.

Fallout

“A post nuclear role playing game”. This tagline for the game pretty much sums it up. You have been living in the comfy and safety of a vault your entire life. Now the water purification system is busted and you have to go out to the big bad post nuclear war world to find a fix.

Release Date

Pros

In FPS games, there is the headshot. In Fallout there is headshot plus more! Targeting allows you to aim for a specific part of your enemy like the legs, arms, head and even eyes. A succesful hit not only causes damage but can also inflict special injuries like knocking them unconscious. Plain and simply, you can choose to shoot the guy in the head and if he gets KO’d you can slowly whack him to death.

The statistics system works very well. How the statistics affect the variety of skills and how the skills translate into things you can do all works very well. When you create a character there is no class selection, but the statistics and skills that you focus on pretty much defines the type of character you want to play.

It looks like the primary statistics also influences what happens in the game, in a big way. When I played with another character of different stats some different things happen. The core main story and quests are still there, but other things were happening differently. Playing a character with an intelligence of one is amusing, but a lot of quests cannot be done.

It has got a large variety of weapons. There are small guns like pistols and rifles, big guns like miniguns and rocket launchers and energy guns which is your laser and plasma collection. On top of that there is also a selection of melee weapons. It is not a simple case of picking up a better gun and going on a winning streak though. You need the appropriate skills to use them well.

The Fallout world is full of surprises. It seems that every second corner I turn or every second person I talk to, there is something unexpected.

There is a large sense of freedom in the game which also comes with different consequences. You can choose to help the good guys or the bad guys. You can be nice or threatening. You can also choose to wipe out a whole town if you just do not like them. Of course killing certain important people may make the game more difficult later on. With this freedom, do expect to walk into an area and get whacked because you are not high level enough yet.

The main story is interesting, but not ground breaking like Baldur’s Gate or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl. What is ground breaking is how the game is so open and still manage to tell the story so well.

There are mods for Fallout. Check out No Mutants Allowed and Vault-Tec Labs.

Cons

There were a few areas of the game interface which I found annoying. The most annoying to me is the small red buttons you have to click to activate that option. There are nice big labels that are so much easier to click on, but you have to click on the small red buttons.

The game randomly crashes sometimes. Not very often, but often enough to be annoying. If getting whacked does not teach you to save your game often, these crashes will.

Sometimes the AI people block the doorway and there is no way to move them. You just have to wait for them to walk away or kill them.

Some quests are marked for you in the game but other quests are not. It feels inconsistent. Better to remember all the quests by yourself.

Other Points

You can scroll the view around but how far you scroll away from your character is limited. So if you want to see what is happening far away, you have to move your character within the viewing distance to see it.

There is little music, but the little bit there is adds to the atmosphere quite well.

Fallout feels like the RPG version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. Weapons and weapon effects behave like you expect them to. The game environment is very dangerous and death comes swiftly. Make sure to save game often.

The game plays in turn-based mode when you are in combat and switches to real-time mode when out of combat. Due to the turn-based nature and the amount of things that you can do, combat moves quite slowly. Fallout has guns, but is slow on the action.

You can get certain NPCs to join you but they are rather weak and there is very limited control over them.

The graphics reminds me of Baldur’s Gate. Although old looking, there is quite a lot of detail in the graphics including what guns can do to people.

Biases

Reviewed version 1.2.

This game reminded me of 2400AD, a really old sci-fi RPG that I liked. That makes Fallout only the third sci-fi RPG I have played. SWTOR is the second sci-fi RPG I played and really liked.

I also really liked Might and Magic VI, Torchlight, Oblivion, and Baldur’s Gate 1, 2 plus expansions.

I also liked Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Lands of Lore 3, Might and Magic 3, 4 and 5.

I did not like Styrateg.

I have completed the game once using a sniper type character.

DRM

Fallout is DRM free from GOG.com.

Minimum Requirements (as stated on GOG.com)

• Windows XP or Windows Vista
• 1 GHz Processor (1.4 GHz recommended)
• 256MB RAM (512 recommended), 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended
• Mouse, Keyboard

Computer Played On

• Windows 7 64 bit.
• Intel Core i5 2.3GHz
• 4Gb RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M 1Gb RAM
• Conexant SmartAudio with egg speakers or earphones. Or Logitech G35.
• Graphics settings are set to whatever I feel comfortable with playing on this PC. They are usually not set to the highest settings. All screenshots are taken with my settings.

Recommended Mods

Fallout1 Resolution Patch – Allows changing the game resolution to be higher than the fixed 640×480. You can see a larger area, but everything looks smaller.

Just Cause 2

Jump on top of a car, shoot bad guys and blow up stuff. Get guns, shoot bad guys and blow up stuff. Steal helicopters, shoot bad guys and blow up stuff. Skydive, shoot bad guys and blow up stuff. Yup, Just Cause 2 is all about shooting bad guys and blowing up stuff, but you do so with some crazy action stunts.

Release Date

Pros

The pop-up tutorials are quite good. It sure helped me learn all the different stuff you can do in the game. You can also turn them off if you are a seasoned player.

There is also a good amount of information that you can view within the game. If you just want pure action, you can safely ignore this, but it does give nice background information for the game as well as hints on how to play.

The mounted minigun is awesome. Not only does it have unlimited ammo, but you can also pick it up and walk around, doing some serious damage. It is slow walking so you cannot take it everywhere… unless you are very patient.

The game is very open with a massive playing field. I thought Oblivion was big, but Just Cause 2 dwarfs it. It is so large that it takes planes some time to get from one place to another. There is a nice quick travel system so not too much time is wasted travelling from place to place.

Just Cause 2 also has lots of things to do. Or should I say lots of things to blow up and lots of places to get into gun fights. There are main quest missions, factional side missions and of course lots of places to simply blow up stuff. In the time it takes to complete Stranglehold, I only got through 13% of the game. And this was when I was focused on completing the main missions and playing on casual(the easiest) difficulty.

If you do get bored of blowing up stuff(you shouldn’t be playing this game), there are race time trials scattered around where you can earn money from.

There is a good variety of environments including large city areas, small villages, jungle, desert and snowy mountains. When you get to high altitude you can see the great views of the land or water. Although graphically very good, I still prefer the scenery of Oblivion.

Blowing up stuff looks fantastic with the Hollywood explosions and there is a good level of environmental destructibility. Although the destructible environment is not as detailed as Stranglehold, Just Cause 2 does provide an island load of stuff to blow up.

Other than explosions and great landscape , the rest of the game also looks great. Gun battles, vehicles, people, buildings, everything looks great.

Take to the skies, the water or the ground with vehicles on land, sea and air. Although ficitional, there are planes, helicopters, boats, motorbikes, cars, APCs and even tuk tuks.

Not since Quake 2 have I played a game that has a grappling hook. Just Cause 2 takes the grappling hook to a whole new level and allows you to do some very crazy stunts. You can dual-hook two objects together with some interesting results. Grappling vehicles quickly brings you to the target vehicle and you can hijack it while moving, and that includes planes and helicopters! Just to top it off you can also grapple hook people, which comes in quite handy sometimes.

The game takes place in a fictional South East Asian country with Malaysian/Singaporean accents. Sounds good to me! Those are not the only accents though, depending on the characters there is a range of accents and the speech is great in my opinion.

There are no John Woo dive shooting or slow mo actions in Just Cause 2, but there is dual wielding action. It i not just twin pistols or twin sub-machine guns either. You can can use different single handed weapons on each hand. For example you can have a sawn-off shotgun in one hand and a sub-machine gun in the other.

There are mods for Just Cause 2. Check out Just Cause 2 Mods

The game is made in such away that if you do not mind dying a lot, you can always progress and improve your character and weapons. I am not the best action gamer in the world, but I did manage to complete the story line missions on hardcore difficulty. This was made possible by slowly and constantly upgrading my weapons and character before progressing each story mission.

By now you probably realise that Just Cause 2 is very thick on the action. Even though playing through it provides some absolutely awesome action sequences, the most mega-ultra-super-awesome action sequences are on the last mission.

Cons

There is no option for how close the chase camera is when driving a vehicle. I found it quite difficult to drive around as I could not judge which way the car was facing when it turned.

All this driving around and no horn? How could they do this? OK, I am just being picky, but it would be more fun if you can horn people to get out of the way.

Other Points

This is a crazy action game, but it does limit the weapons and ammo you can carry(except the minigun). I have run out of ammo very often and picked up different guns during and after battles.

As you blow up stuff, you get chaos points. The more chaos points you accumulate, the more weapons and vehicles you unlock to be purchasable from the black market. There are also parts you can collect which you use to upgrade those weapons and vehicles. The enemy also gets tougher as chaos points increases.

When you load a game all the vehicles reset themselves to their default locations. This means any vehicles you buy will also disappear.

The story is OK. There are missions that follow the story, but it is quite clear that Just Cause 2 is about blowing up stuff and shooting bad guys… And maybe about doing crazy stunts too. The government of Panau is no longer friendly to the US and one of The Agency’s agents has disappeared. Your job is to find out why. How do you do that? Blow up stuff of course! Then the government troops come rolling in so you have a nice shoot out.

Although the government’s troops are marked as the bad guys, you can kill civilians like in GTA. However, there are no benefits or consequences if you do, other than more government troops coming along.

I like flight sims, but I found the planes difficult to control. I also rigged up my Logitech Wingman Force 3D to be playable with Just Cause 2 using x360ce and still found it difficult to fly. After some practise I found flying with keyboard actually easier than joystick. I guess Just Cause 2 was made for keyboard flying.

The AI of the game is not that smart, but smart enough to make the game a lot of fun.

The Logitech G35 detects surround sound but it sounds like normal stereo to me.

After you complete the main story line, the game enters mercenary mode, where you can just continue travelling around the island to blow up stuff.

Out of the blue, while listening to Roxette’s Joyride, I started seeing images of Just Cause 2. So, I made this:

Biases

Reviewed version 1.0.0.2 of the game.

I have only played the first Grand Theft Auto and seen videos of the other GTA games. A part from having free reign to hijack vehicles and fight authorities, I do not know what other similarities or differences Just Cause 2 has with GTA.

I really liked Stranglehold.

I liked the first Grand Theft Auto.

I have completed all the main story missions once on hardcore difficulty.

DRM

Uses Steam.

The first time I installed the game, it installed Steam and tried to update the Steam platform but failed. I had to run the installer again. The update completed on second run and I managed to reach the Steam login screen. When I entered my username and password, it crashed. Have to run the installer again. I had to retrieve a lost account and reset my password before I could login.

After three runs of the installer, I had to enter the Product Code into Steam to activate the game. Then the actual game started installing.

After game installation, I still could not play because it was getting game updates. It did not ask to get updates, it just went and got it all by itself. More waiting.

It took just over four hours before I could play the game. I am guessing it would not take so long if Steam was already installed.

Minimum Requirements (from the readme file)

• OPERATING SYSTEM: Microsoft Windows Vista (Windows XP is unsupported)
• DIRECTX: Microsoft DirectX 10
• CPU: Dual-core CPU with SSE3 (Athlon 64 X2 4200 / Pentium D 3GHz)
• RAM: 2GB system Memory
• GRAPHICS: DX10 compatible graphics card with 256 MB of memory (Nvidia GeForce 8800 series/ ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro)
• SOUND: 100% DirectX 10 compatible sound card
• DVD-ROM: Quad-speed (4x) DVD-ROM drive
• HARD DRIVE: 10GB of free drive space
• INPUT DEVICES: Keyboard and Mouse

Computer Played On

• Windows 7 64 bit.
• Intel Core i5 2.3GHz
• 4Gb RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M 1Gb RAM
• Conexant SmartAudio with egg speakers or earphones. Or Logitech G35.
• Graphics settings are set to whatever I feel comfortable with playing on this PC. They are usually not set to the highest settings. All screenshots are taken with my settings.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

Butcher Bay, the galaxy’s toughest prison. No one escapes from Butcher Bay, except Riddick of course. Sneak, punch and shoot your way out of Butcher Bay and straight into the mercenary ship Dark Athena. Bad things are happening on the Dark Athena and the crew is out to get you. More sneaking and brute forcing your way around the ship.

Release Date

Pros

The speech is top notch and of course there is Vin Diesel reprising his role as Riddick.

Head movement is simulated realistically much like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. The view changes to third-person view for some things though, so not all of the game shows the nice head movement. The movement during hand-to-hand combat looks brilliant though.

Everything in the game sounds excellent. There are also plenty of ambient sounds that gives the game a very good atmosphere. My Logitech G35 picks up the surround sound from the game and it sounds great. I would say as good as S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl.

Excellent graphics. Everything looks great in the game.

There are some very good built in smarts for your character Riddick. As you turn a corner or hide behind cover, he is smart enough to move the gun to the side or above the obstacle so that you can still get a clear shot. He can also climb boxes, edges, ladders and railings.

The cutscenes are very well done. This combined with all the other great stuff in the gives the game a great atmosphere and makes it feel like you are playing in a movie. Much better than Quake 4 even.

The package includes a remake of Escape from Butcher Bay as well as Assault on Dark Athena. Having never played Escape from Butcher Bay before, it sure feels like I got two games in one.

There are guns and shooting, but that is not all. You also fight hand-to-hand with bare hands or pick from a selection of weapons. To add some icing to the cake, you can pull off special moves which look very impressive.

The story is excellent. Escape from Butcher Bay also tells of how Mr. Riddick got his fancy eyes.

There is some sort of adaptive difficulty adjuster. It does not change from Hard to Normal or easy, but I noticed that when I die and reload often enough, my health goes up. This only happens when your health is not full.

The game really rewards you for thinking like Riddick. Both Butcher Bay and Dark Athena are stealth focused. Even though there are sections where you must brute force your way through, most of the time there is an alternative way of getting through quite easily. This is most evident when playing the game on hard difficulty.

Cons

There is no volume control for sound! Sure this is only a minor con, but why are they missing such a simple thing? I am grateful that they have volume for music though.

The game has great cutscenes to progress the story, but you cannot review earlier cutscenes without loading an earlier checkpoint and playing through until you get to the cutscene point. Another annoying thing about not have save game functionality.

For some strange unknown reason, the game will randomly turn off Decals setting for the graphics. You can turn them back on, but it gets annoying. It seems to be related to blood/gore automatically turning off as well. There is a solution outlined here, but I have not tried it.

Other Points

As expected, the game is very violent and gory. I have not seen any dismemberment like Soldier of Fortune II, but you do see from first-person view, breaking someone’s neck and stabbing a person in the eye.

There is also a lot of bad language. It is expected for this game and fits well. I find it strange that there is an option to turn off gore, but not to turn off profanity. I am not sure how many people would want to turn off gore and want to keep the profanity.

The game is definitely a first-person shooter even though it does show some parts in third-person.

There is dynamic music in the game and it does transition nicely, but I did not find it that impacting.

In general the game is quite linear, but there are sections where you have to run back and forths a bit and there are parts where you can take alternate paths.

The AI is smart enough to make the game fun, but is not the smartest in the world. Probably a good thing it is not too smart, or the game would get very difficult.

There is no save game functionality. You must pass checkpoints to save your game progress. So, if you hit a difficult spot there will be a lot of doing the same thing over and over until you can get to the next checkpoint. Fortunately the game reloads the last checkpoint automatically when you die.

Biases

Reviewed GOG.com version of game.

I watched the movie Pitch Black many years ago. Apart from some guy wearing shades and can see in the dark, I do not remember anything about the movie. I do remember that I did not enjoy the movie. I will have to watch it again after completing the game.

I have completed Escape From Butcher Bay on hard difficulty and completed Assault on Dark Athena on easy. I played through Dark Athena on hard, but just could not finish the final battle on hard.

I really liked Serious Sam, all the Doom games, Quake 4 and Quake 2.

I also really liked Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, SWAT 4, Red Faction, Bioshock, Alien Vs Predator, Soldier of Fortune 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky, Rainbow Six, Rogue Spear and Call Of Duty 4.

I also liked Red Faction 2, Painkiller Overdose and Star Wars Battlefront 2.

I also liked Battlefield 1942, Delta Force and Spec Ops 2.

DRM

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is available DRM free from GOG.com.

Minimum Requirements (as stated on GOG.com)

• Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7
• Processor: Intel Pentium D 805 or AMD Athlon X2 +3800
• RAM: 1 GB Windows XP / 2 GB Windows Vista
• Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT or NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra or better
• Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible
• Hard Drive Space: 11 GB

Computer Played On

• Windows 7 64 bit.
• Intel Core i5 2.3GHz
• 4Gb RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M 1Gb RAM
• Conexant SmartAudio with egg speakers or earphones. Or Logitech G35.
• Graphics settings are set to whatever I feel comfortable with playing on this PC. They are usually not set to the highest settings. All screenshots are taken with my settings.

Handy Tips

When playing through one of the games, do not change the difficulty part way. At one point I changed the difficulty to normal to explore and reloaded the checkpoint and set it back to hard again to play through. At the end of the game, I did not get the accomplishment of completed the game with either normal or hard difficulty. Time to play through again.

Star Wars Empire at War Gold Pack

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…. The Galactic Empire wants to control the entire galaxy. The Rebel Alliance wants to stop The Galactic Empire. A bunch of pirates called the Zann Consortium just wants to make money and corrupt everything. Choose a side to conquer the galaxy in this Star Wars real-time strategy(RTS) game.

Release Date

Pros

It is Star Wars and Star Wars done well! All the Star Wars favourites are there like the Death Star, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, AT-ATs, X-Wings, Millenium Falcon, Nebulon-Bs, Star Destroyers, ewoks and even Kyle Katarn.

Some original soundtracks from the Star Wars movies are mixed with some original compositions. All the music fits well with the game giving the nice Star Wars atmosphere.

The graphics are Star Wars wonderful. Although not as good as C&C3 Tiberium Wars it is still excellent. Each space and ground unit is well detailed. The space battle explosions look Star Wars spectacular, but the land battle explosions seems a bit lacking.

The sounds are authentically Star Wars and done well too, but unfortunately the original cast do not reprise their roles in the game. The substitute voices do perform an OK job though.

The scaling for the units are done very well. Tie Fighters and X-Wings are tiny compared to the Star Destroyers and Nebulon-Bs. And for ground battles, the AT-ATs, AT-STs, Snow Speeders and soldiers all look about the right size. Forces of Corruption also adds the Super Star Destroyer Executor to the list and it is massive!

Empire at War is very easy to learn to play. Even though the game plays quite different to traditional RTS titles, the tutorials are excellent and the hints that pop up really help you understand how the game works.

The campaigns and galactic conquest modes are played in two parts and are very different to the usual Command & Conquer type RTS. The first part is played on the galactic map. Here you get an overview of the whole galaxy and this is where you build all your stuff like star bases, ships, buildings and land units. This is also where you see your income grow and you get to move your forces around. All this happens in real-time. When one of your space or ground forces encounter an enemy’s force, a tactical battle takes place. This whole galactic map mode gives a whole new way to play an RTS game and is fitting to the Star Wars universe.

The campaign stories takes place from before Episode IV to the battle of Yavin for plain Empire at War. Then Forces of Corruption takes place just after the battle of Yavin. This game gives you the chance to play out part of the movie if you so choose. If you are tired of following a linear story, play the galactic conquest games, where anything goes as far as conquering the galaxy is concerned.

There are mods for the game. Check out Empire at War Heaven, Mod DB and Mod DB: Forces of Corruption.

Cons

UPDATE: The below bug has been fixed in the Steam version of the game.  Looks like there have been a whole bunch of other fixes too including moving multiplayer from dead GameSpy to Steam’s framework.  No more cons for Star Wars Empire at War.  YAY!

There is a minor bug that can cause a very anticlimactic end to a galactic conquest game in normal Empire at War. If you use the Death Star to destroy a planet that has Han Solo and Chewbacca on it, the game will crash. Here is a video that shows what happens.

Other Points

There is a cinematic camera feature that lets you view the world from a cinematic point of view, but I find it only shows the scenes well half of the time. Most of the time it just shows things from weird angles, that you cannot see the action nicely. It is possible to focus on one unit and rotate the camera manually with the mouse, but you cannot perform a fly-by camera action.

I am unsure if this is intentional or just my not playing well, but the imperial stormtroopers seems as useless as they are in the movies. I need hordes of these guys to get anything done.

The tactical battle part is the closest thing Empire at War has to a traditional RTS, but it is still very different. You cannot build units and you can only build small support structures on designated build pads. You start off with a bunch of units and you must call in reinforcements to join the fun. Land tactical battles have the added element of reinforcement points. You must capture them to increase the population cap to be able to call in reinforcements.

Both land and space tactical battles have a population cap but they are large enough to give the big battle feeling.

There is also a third mode of play which is tactical skirmish. This is a quick game of tactical battle on a selected map. In this mode, there is a steady income, but your units can also capture resource points to boost income. Units can be built in this tactical battle, but they must still be brought in via reinforcements. apart from the small support structures, buildings still cannot be built, but existing buildings that are destroyed can be rebuilt at the same location.

Unlike Homeworld, Empire at War’s space battles are only controlled in two dimensions. So it plays pretty much like other ground based real-time strategy games. The battles do sometimes show ships flying in three dimensions though.

Plain Empire at War has the two main sides The Empire and The Rebel Alliance. Forces of Corruption adds a third side to the fray which is a pirate group called the Zann Consortium. The three sides are different but I find that Act of War and C&C3 Tiberium Wars have greater differences between the sides. In addition to the third side, Forces of Corruption also adds new units to the Rebels and the Empire.

Star Wars Empire at War Gold Pack is also available DRM-free from GOG.com, but reading around, it looks like it has not been fixed up like the Steam version.

Biases

Reviewed version 1.05 of Empire at War and version 1.01 of Forces of Corruption.  More recently I have been playing the wonderfully fixed up Steam version.

I really like the original trilogy Star Wars movies. Everytime I play a Star Wars game I would bring out the movies to re-watch again.

I mainly played the Galactic Conquest and the campaign modes.

I have completed the campaigns for all three sides.

I really liked Act of War, Dune 2, Command And Conquer, C&C Tiberian Sun, C&C3 Tiberium Wars, Rise Of Nations, The Moon Project, Sins of a Solar Empire and Dawn of War.

I also liked Empire Earth 2, Dark Reign, Warcraft 1 and 2, Supreme Commander and Total Annihilation.

I did not like Homeworld.

DRM

A key code must be entered before the game installs.

The disc must be in the drive to play the game.

Patches

As mentioned above, the Steam version includes all the below patches plus a whole lot more.

1.05 – Check your version before upgrading. The Gold Pack already comes patched to this version.

1.1 – The Gold Pack comes with version 1.01 of Forces of Corruption. I am not sure if it is the same as 1.1 as when I tried to install the patch, it refused saying it cannot find the game.

RAM fix patch – Fixes Forces of Corruption so that it runs on PCs running 64 bit with more than 2Gb RAM.

Minimum Requirements (as stated on box)

• Computer: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible computer required.
• Operation System: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista.
• CPU: Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon 1.0 GHz or faster required.
• Memory: 256 MB RAM or higher required.
• Graphics Card: 32 MB 3D graphics card with Hardare Transform and Lighting(T&L) capability required.
• Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0C compatible Sound Card required.
• DVD-ROM: DVD-ROM drive required.
• Input Device: Keyboard and mouse required.
• DirectX: Microsoft DirectX 9.0c is included on this CD.
• Note: DirectX may require the “latest” drivers for your particular hardware.
• Installation: 3.5 GB of free hard drive space when you install both games. We recommend that you have an additional 500 MB of free space available after installation.
• Supported Chipsets:
  • ATI Radeon 8500/9000/9200 family
  • ATI Radeon 9500/9600/9700/9800 family
  • ATI Radeon X300/X600/X700/X800 family
  • ATI Radeon X1300/X1600/X1800/X1900 family
  • NVIDIA GeForce3 family
  • NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti family
  • NVIDIA GeForce FX family
  • NVIDIA GeForce 6 family
  • NVIDIA GeForce 7 family

Computer Played On

• Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz
• 2Gb RAM
• ATI Radeon X1600 256Mb RAM (laptop version)
• Realtek HD Audio(no idea what model) with Altec Lansing ACS41 speakers or Logitech ClearChat Premium PC Headset.
• Win XP Pro
• Graphics settings are set to whatever I feel comfortable with playing on this PC. They are usually not set to the highest settings. All screenshots are taken with my settings.

Handy Tips

The autorun setup launcher does not work on Windows 7 64 bit. To install the game I entered the EAW folder and ran setup.exe manually. Do the same with EAWX folder for Forces of Corruption.

Recommended Mods

Stargate Empire at War. This is a total conversion of Empire at War using the Stargate universe. Although some of the Star Wars stuff pops up now and then, this mod is very well done. There are new units and new maps as well as text descriptions for most things. I am not very familiar with the Stargate universe, so I am not sure how true to the franchise this mod is.

Tyrian 2000

Blast away, upgrade your weapons and even buy new ships in this classic top-down vertical scroller shooter.

Release Date

November 1999.

Pros

It is free! Get it now from GOG.com.

There are lots of weapons to get/buy.

There is a ship editor where you can change weapons for the ship, modify the armour and even change the graphics for the ship. This could be considered as cheating as you can start with a super ship, but it does give more variety to the game.

The two player mode is quite innovative in that not only are there two ships flying around blasting things, but you can join the ships together and one player controls the movement of the ship and a few guns, while the other player controls a turret on the ship.

Street Fighter type moves in a vertical scroller? It is unofficially called ‘Twiddles’. Perform a sequence of moves and button presses and something special happens. If you are lazy to find out yourself what these moves are, there is a cheat document included in the GOG.com package of the game. Or you can check out this Tyrian 2000 fan site. Be careful with the twiddles as most of them use up shields or armour when triggered.

After playing Astro Avenger I came back to Tyrian 2000 and discovered that Tyrian 2000 can actually be played using the mouse too! It does not control as easy as Astro Avenger but at least there is a choice.

Cons

Like all action scroller shooters, Tyrian 2000 gets repetitive. I find that I can always return for a quick game, but I usually cannot play one sitting for long.

Half the time, when I exit the game, DosBox freezes. I then have to kill the process manually. I am unsure whether this is a DosBox issue or a game issue, but I have run other games with DosBox and have never encountered this problem until Tyrian 2000.

Other Points

The graphics are old and appears pixelated, but the animations are very smooth and looks great.

There are four game modes: Two player arcade mode, Timed battle, Arcade mode and full game mode.

Timed battle has a time limit where you have to score as high as possible.

Arcade mode, is the standard shoot stuff, pick up weapons/upgrades and keep going. You start with a number of lives but can get more.

Full game mode differs from arcade mode in several ways. There are no weapons/upgrades to pickup. You must score points and use them to buy stuff. You can also buy different ships. The story is told in this mode and there are data cubes to collect which tells part of the story as well as provide some information. You only get one ship and if that is destroyed, you must start the level again. After each level you can save your progress though.

Play Tyrian 2000 around Christmas time.

Biases

Reviewed version 3.0

All information is based on the GOG.com packaged version of the game.

I really liked Xenon 2: Megablast and Raptor: Call of the Shadows.

I also really liked RIP 3 The Last Hero and liked Larva Mortus. They are not scroller shooters, but they are simple action shooters.

I swap between using keyboard and a gamepad to play.

I have NOT completed all the levels.

DRM

Tyrian 2000 is DRM free from GOG.com.

Minimum Requirements (as stated on GOG.com)

• Windows XP or Windows Vista
• 1 GHz Processor (1.4 GHz recommended)
• 256MB RAM (512 recommended)
• 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended)
• Mouse, Keyboard
• The site also says compatible with Windows 7(32 & 64 bit). I have not verified this.

Computer Played On

• Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz
• 2Gb RAM
• ATI Radeon X1600 256Mb RAM (laptop version)
• Logitech G35 headset and/or Realtek HD Audio(no idea what model) with Altec Lansing ACS41 speakers or Logitech ClearChat Premium PC Headset.
• Win XP Pro
• Thrustmaster Firestorm Digital 3 gamepad.
• Graphics settings are set to whatever I feel comfortable with playing on this PC. They are usually not set to the highest settings. All screenshots are taken with my settings.

Handy Tips

If you use a joystick/gamepad and are running the GOG.com version of Tyrian 2000 via DosBox, you can set autofire on for the buttons. This helps if you do not like button mashing for some of the weapons. The down side is, the rapid firing weapons won’t fire as often AND you can trigger the twiddles unintentionally.

To turn on/off autofire in dosbox, search for autofire=false in the dosboxT2K.conf file and swap between true and false

X-Wing Alliance

Join the Rebel Alliance and fly your favourite X-wing, A-wing or Corellian Transport to take on the Galactic Empire, all the way to the Battle of Endor.

Release Date

Pros

This is the best Star Wars space combat simulator to date.

They say “In space, no one can hear you scream.”, but it did not apply “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” Thank goodness for that, because X-Wing Alliance gives wonderful and authentic Star Wars sounds just like the movies. The laser cannons, explosions, engine rumble and of course the lengendary TIE Fighter all sound great.

The original Star Wars Trilogy soundtrack has been edited to fit the game perfectly.

You get to fly the Millenium Falcon into the Death Star to destroy it. It is not as easy as they do it in the movies, but it is still awesome. One thing that puzzles me is who are you in the Millenium Falcon since Lando Calrissian is the pilot?

The graphics are fantastic. Although not as nice as the newer Star Wars games, they are still fantastic. All the cockpits, ships, space stations, explosions all look Star Wars great.

Right from the introduction sequence all the way to the Death Star’s destruction, the game breathes the Star Wars atmosphere. From the hangar of your family’s base to the furious space battles, all the presentations make you feel like you are a Star Wars pilot.

There are plenty of ships to fly. The campaign is geared towards the Rebel Alliance, but you can set up your own skirmish battles and fly Imperial ships too. Waylon’s X-Wing Alliance Mod has some mods including missions converted from the TIE Fighter game.

There is a historical missions feature where you can refly any campaign missions that you have already completed. You can also try different ships and loadouts for that mission.

The ships are scaled very well. The fighters are tiny, the capital ships are big and then there is the Super Star Destroyer. Just like the movies, the SSD makes other ships look like Micro Machines.

Cons

The speech in general sound only OK. Then when you reach the Battle of Endor, Lando Calrissian sounds terrible. There is a nice mod that adds to movie sounds for this bit though.

There is a film room feature where you can record your mission and play it back for viewing later. Unfortunately the camera controls are limited and terrible. The joystick controls the free moving camera but it never seems to move the way I expect it to.

Other Points

The campaign story starts off with you being a pilot for your family’s business. Things go wrong and you end up joining the Rebel Alliance and flying for them all the way to the destruction of Death Star II in the Battle of Endor.

There is force feedback in the game, but it is not that impressive.

Like TIE Fighter, X-Wing and the Wing Commanders before this, X-Wing Alliance is a space combat simulator. Like a flight simulator, you must learn the keys and how to work the ships. It is still far easier to learn and play than the realisitc flight simulators like Falcon 4.0 and IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946.

If you have played the first X-Wing or TIE Fighter, you will feel right at home with X-Wing Alliance.

The Logitech G35 is detecting that there is surround sound in the game but it sounds very stereo to me.

The game is quite difficult. I set the difficulty to easy and still I struggle to complete a lot of missions.

Biases

Reviewed version 2.02.

Everytime I play X-Wing Alliance, I bring out the movies to watch again.

I really liked TIE Fighter, X-Wing, Wing Commander I, II, III, Privateer and Elite.

I only played the single player parts.

Patches

2.02 – A few fixes as well as a film room feature.

Minimum Requirements (as stated on the box)

• CD-DVD: 4x Drive
• OS: Windows 95/98
• Memory: 32MB RAM
• Processor: P-200
• Graphics: 2mb PCI
• Input: Keyboard, Mouse, Joystick
• Sound Card: 16 bit Compatibles
• Internet: 28.8Kbps. 2-4 Players, 2PCs
• Network: IPX compliant. 2-8 Players, 2PCs

Computer Played On

• Windows 7 64 bit.
• Intel Core i5 2.3GHz
• 4Gb RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M 1Gb RAM
• Conexant SmartAudio with egg speakers or earphones. Or Logitech G35.
• Graphics settings are set to whatever I feel comfortable with playing on this PC. They are usually not set to the highest settings. All screenshots are taken with my settings.

Handy Tips

X-Wing Alliance does work under Windows 7 64 bit but there is a bit of trickery involved in installing it. There is a new installer and set of instructions here.

The cutscenes play out of sync on a multi-core PC. To fix it, set the affinity to only use one core. One way is to change the game shortcut to something like C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C start “” /affinity 01 “C:\Program Files (x86)\LucasArts\X-Wing Alliance\XWINGALLIANCE.EXE”. I got this information from here.

If you are having difficulty reading stuff in the game, try this font fix.

The game was running very choppy on my PC and I had to set custom 3D settings in my NVIDIA Control Panel to fix it. I had to set vertical sync to force off and power management mode to prefer maximum performance.

Recommended Mods

Darksaber’s Ultimate Craft Pack – This mod improves both the graphics and sound for the game. It needs a pretty powerful graphics card to handle it though. On my PC it mostly runs fine, but there are some parts that gets quite jerky.

If you would like to upgrade the graphics of objects individually then check out X-Wing Alliance Upgrade.

Battle of Endor voice update – Changes the speech for the Battle of Endor to be the sounds from the movie. So Lando sounds much better.