A bit lite just like the other weekly entries, but here it is nonetheless: another new Game of the Week feature! In case you didn't know - every week I write up an entry about the games I played in the past week. Out of all those games one ends up receiving the title of Game of the Week. So if you're interested in knowing what this blogger played in the past week, in between writing blog posts then please do read on!
Week #22
(June 18th - June 27th)
I finally got some more gaming time in again, so there's a bunch to talk about this week. That said, I still haven't booted up
Guild Wars: Nightfall at all this week, so it looks like that one will stay out of the picture for the moment. Of course
Unreal Tournament 2004 was featured heavily again this week and I got some more time in on those two browser based games of
last week. New additions were some hours of
Sword of the New World - as well as a lot of
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars - both games currently featuring
'public' beta tests.
With regards to UT2004 I can be fairly brief. I played a bunch of Team Arena Master, got some good and bad games in - and lost another war with my clan eC. My former clan - beMEAN - also got back together so I'm looking into joining up with them again, coincidentally another former clan of mine - IC - has risen from it's grave as well. Ah well, we'll see what the future brings - for now I'm doing just fine on publics, most of the time.
On the browser based front I was finally liberated from my attacker by some of my allies and gained a load of new, powerful, battleships in Bulfleet. I'm currently ranked 25th (out of about 1500 active players) with five planets and our alliance was ranked 1st until two days ago, when we dropped to 2nd place. On the MechReign front I've been racing past the established player and am now up to the 50th place in the rankings as a level 8 commander. My squad of Gundam 00-themed mechs has been doing better and better and is now even starting to beat squads of commanders several levels above my own. If any of you care to team up just head onto those games and send a message to Droniac, although the Bulfleet game is in Dutch.
Sword of the New World is an upcoming mmorpg that does some things drastically different from the norm. It seemed pretty interesting, because it allows you to control up to three characters at the same time - as well as manage and grow a family on each server - in a rather unusual setting inspired by the European colonization of America. It certainly looks pretty and some of the character and clothing designs are very good, but I didn't really find much else to like. There's nothing particularly enjoyable about the gameplay - and the interface is horrid at best (for all you NwN 2 bashers: this is 10 times worse, at least) furthermore the English translations are so bad it makes my head hurt. Now this is a beta version, so they'll certainly fix up the language somewhat, but unfortunately these kinds of 'Korean import games' tend to suffer from horrid English, permanently. Granted: the setting doesn't particularly appeal to me, so it might be more enjoyable to someone genuinely interested in this kind of mmorpg, furthermore the amount of actual bugs was surprisingly low.
The meat of this week was beyond a shadow of a doubt the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars beta test. It's already so popular that you have to spend nearly 20 minutes just to get into a server (in Europe anyway) - so don't be fooled by any disgruntled Battlefield fans ranting about it's supposed 'suckage'... most players disagree with them. More surprisingly, that includes myself! I had expected a vehicle-focused Battlefield clone that would get boring after one or two rounds (you know, just like Battlefield 2), but I was wrong!
It turns out Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is actually a pretty damn good take on the whole vehicle-enhanced warfare genre, which I ordinarily hate. Rather than taking anything from the Battlefield series - this can best be described as a mix of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Tribes & Delta Force. It's pacing, objectives & infantry combat clearly take after it's predecessor, with vital roles for every class and highly channeled gameplay. The environments, vehicle implementation and new sprintjumping technique take after Tribes: much of the environment seems designed to gain speedboosts on with sprintjumps - and vehicles are added not as the focus, but as an 'enhancement'. Honestly I've never even used a vehicle for anything other than getting to a target, infantry gameplay is just so much more fun, useful & important. As for the Delta Force influence - that's where the weapons come in, which feel kinda spray-ish, much more-so than in it's predecessor. I've heard the hitboxes haven't been fixed yet though, so it might not be as bad as it seems, but right now you almost need to zoom in to hit stuff with many of the weapons.
In spite of some balancing issues (Strogg seem much more powerful than GDF, when played right) and the weird hitboxes/weapon spray, Quake Wars is surprisingly enjoyable. I didn't expect this to be any good, but it actually is a blast to play. Too bad the Battlefield fans are trying to ruin it with their woefully misguided views on pacing... let's hope the guys and girls of Splash Damage are intelligent and ignore those noobs. Now I'll shut up, because I still need stuff to talk about in the upcoming first impressions article on this game! Oh and you can expect an entry on why 'slower is not more tactical' soon-ish as well, just so I can piss off some of those damned Battlefield newbies.
Enemy Territory:
Quake Wars (Beta)
(note: not a screenie of the actual beta test)
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As usual the Screenshot of the Week feature returns once more, with another cool new screenshot for you to enjoy. This time around I've uploaded a screenshot from a somewhat older game that you might know - Guild Wars: Factions. I sort of covered it (along with the other two chapters) about a month ago. Anyhow if you want to know all the tiny details then just read on below the picture, otherwise just scroll down and enjoy. See you next week for another screenshot!
Week #22
Guild Wars: Factions
Story: This particular screenshot was taken during one of the earlier missions of the Factions campaign. It's main allure is not so much for what is on the screenshot itself, but the happy memories it brings of this memory. After all, this was the first Guild Wars mission to have multiple parties fighting off waves of PvE monsters. It was awesome running about this mission with my Assassin - alongside 15 other players as well as an armada of pets and minions. We nailed it perfect on the first try too! Most Guild Wars: Factions players would regard this as one of the main highlights of that chapter (alongside alliance battles and the implementation of factions).
Game: The Guild Wars franchise is one of the most popular amongst online RPG players. It's second chapter was released roughly two years ago and was known as Guild Wars: Factions. This new chapter introduced a full new island, campaign, two new classes, 24-player alliance battles, guild alliances & factional warfare (which allowed alliances to take control over actual towns). In spite of all this it's regarded as the weakest game of the three, featuring a fairly poor PvE experience and a horridly large section of slum-like cityscapes that tends to put people off before they hit the real meat (and fun part) of the game.
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Boy oh boy, it's been way too long since I last posted, but don't worry this blog is still online and I will continue updating! It might be a 'bit' late, but here's the new News of the Week entry at long last. Anyhow - on to the usual intro!
The Game Drone might not be just another gaming news blog, but I do touch on the most interesting PC gaming-related bits of news every week in a feature known as 'News of the Week'. It's a regular feature on Thursdays every week (well not so much this week - and as such the next entry will be delayed a couple of days as well - otherwise there'd be nothing to report) - and all previous (and other news-related) entries can be accessed by selecting the 'news' category in the right-hand menu. Enjoy!
Week #21
(June 14th - June 25th)
Heh it's already been
11 days since the last entry, so I've got plenty to talk about this time! Anyhow some of the great news you can read about this week includes the
Jumpgate: Evolution announcement, the upcoming
ArmA: Queen's Gambit expansion pack, a new
3D Realms game called
Earth No More and a release date for the
Half Life 2 Orange Box. There's also a small segment on the freshly started
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars 'public' beta test - as well as a load of free games for you to enjoy!
Game Announcements
NetDevil has revealed Jumpgate: Evolution a complete remake of their original space mmo (which I even beta tested back in the day). Just about everything has received an overhaul, from the awesome new graphics (see picture above) to the new interface, improved AI, new PvP features, etc. You can sign up for beta testing now, by visiting the new official site here. Contrary to that other space mmo (EVE Online) this is more of a hands-on game, so more suitable for the oldschool sim fans! Could this mean we'll be seeing a proper space sim soon? I sure hope so! (Worthplaying)
Fans of realistic shooters have been enjoying ArmA: Armed Assault greatly (provided their PCs could run it) - and for those fans there's good news! 505 Games has announced that an expansion pack is on it's way, entitled: ArmA: Queen's Gambit. This expansion pack will feature two campaigns that will tie up the ArmA storyline along with new multiplayer maps and game modes. You can expect this expansion pack to arrive in stores near you this fall.
New game development studio Recoil Games appears to be working under 3D Realms (Duke Nukem Fornever) supervision on an interesting new action game entitled Earth No More. It aught to be done by 2009 and will be mainly a singleplayer game with added co-op support. As for the setting... well it's the village of New England in the United States - at a time when the Earth decides to strike back against it's oppressors (that would be us). As such you'll be fighting fearsome opponents such as mutated plants - interestingly those opponents can apparently be controlled by another player in co-op multiplayer. It isn't yet known whether co-op multiplayer will also be present in the PC version (because it frequently isn't). (Worthplaying)
Remember those episodic expansions for Half Life 2? Another one is on it's way - and Valve has finally picked a release date for it! Half Life 2: Orange Box and Half Life 2: Episode 2 will be available from 9 October onward, although possibly a couple days later in Europe. Unfortunately you will not be able to purchase Episode 2 separately in stores, only by use of Steam.
The Quake Wars Have Begun!
Or at least for 60.000 new beta testers they have! Over the past week FilePlanet distributed an equal number of beta tester keys for this Enemy Territory: Quake Wars developed by Splash Damage. Unfortunately this promotion has already ended and as such you're out of luck if you still want a key, well... unless you can convince some disgruntled Battlefield players to give you theirs. I did get my key in - so you can expect some cool first impressions post on this blog in the coming days.
In further Quake Wars news - Splash Damage seems to have decided to add in-game advertisements to this upcoming shooter. The reasoning behind this move is so they will not have to translate costs for ongoing support to the consumer. While the reason still seems vague and far-fetched (many developers do this for free) I think advertisements would suit this game rather well... considering the fact that it's about waging a not-too-distant war for survival on our own planet. (EnemyTerritory.com)
Your weekly portion of Free Gaming!
Oh yes, it looks like this just might become a regular section of the News of the Week as it's proving rather simple to find new free game experiences every week! This week's first entry in the free gaming section is a brand new demo for Quake 4. So why would you bother with this new demo if you didn't like the old one? Simple: it features all the improved features of the latest 1.4.2 update, transforming multiplayer gameplay into something else entirely (it definitely makes the game much more enjoyable). It's only 255 mb too, so there's really no reason not to download this free multiplayer demo.
Remember that preview I wrote for an upcoming free mmorpg that might just be well worth your time? Guess what - after it's one week delay the beta finally went public and everyone is now allowed to join in on the fun! So head on over to that CABAL Online website and enjoy a great free game! NOTE: Only for European players!
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As usual the Screenshot of the Week feature returns once more, with another cool new screenshot for you to enjoy. This time around I've uploaded a screenshot from a game I covered only a couple of days ago! The Overlord demo really does look quite good - and the full version aught to be enjoyable, although not quite classic material. Anyhow if you want to know all the tiny details then just read on below the picture, otherwise just scroll down and enjoy. See you next week for another screenshot!
Week #21
Overlord Demo
Story: A story for this screenshot eh? Well, it's from the early bits of the game, when you finish the tutorial and head back to your domain. You're given a brief tour by an adviser minion, which provides you with some interesting and cool visuals - such as the screenshot above. Is it really a special moment? Nah... well, maybe in the full version, heh. But even if it's not an all that important sequence - it does look cool and gets you pumped for some villager-slaughtering with that nasty axe ;)
Game: What's there to say with regards to Overlord that I haven't said already? Here are my impressions of the demo, in case you missed them, it actually scores pretty good! Anyhow - let's do a basic intro anyway shall we? In Overlord you're a master of evil who intends to spread his reign of terror across the idyllic lands around his tower, but rather than heading out yourself and mashing some local farmers' heads in - you'll mostly be leading packs of minions to do the dirty work for you. Unfortunately, contrary to expectations, it turns out that the evil portion of this game is rather mild - and it's more about being a lesser evil who smashes greater evils (or fallen heroes to be more precise). Ah well, at least it's fun watching your minions smash things and craft helmets out of pumpkins.
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Here's yet another new Game of the Week feature, as usual! In case you didn't know - every week I write up an entry about the games I played in the past week. Out of all those games one ends up receiving the title of Game of the Week. So if you're interested in knowing what this blogger played in the past week, in between writing blog posts then please do read on!
Week #21
(June 9th - June 18th)
I didn't get a lot of gaming in during the past
'week' because I mainly focused on cleaning up some disk space throughout the week. Regardless I did play
Unreal Tournament 2004 for a couple of hours, as well as the
Overlord demo. I also got started on two browser based games - namely
Bulfleet and
Mechreign - which aught to be a fun distraction for a while. Perhaps not the most impressive list of games, or as varied as
last week, but it'll do.
This past week in UT2004 was... well... short. I only got a couple of hours in, split pretty much 50/50 between Team Arena Master and Instagib Capture the Flag. We didn't get to play any actual clan matches, so it's been all public play too. I shifted my mouse weights and fov settings around a bit, so for now I'll be getting used to the new settings - rather than scoring constant top place rankings. Ah well, I'm certain I'll keep playing this one for many weeks to come - so we'll see what happens next ;)
Regarding the Overlord demo... well, I played through it in about 30 minutes and posted up my first impressions, which you might already have read. Anyhow, it turns out to be quite different from my expectations, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. At least in this demo everything works properly and gameplay was fun - contrary to the demo I touched on last week. Too bad it's a huge 1GB file, for just half an hour of gameplay (at most) - it's overkill.
Last, but not least, are the two browser based games I mentioned earlier. The first is Bulfleet which now has a Dutch version that I'm participating in. It's essentially just another one of those space empire-building games where you try to rank #1 towards the end of the round. I got lucky and got bunched into the same galaxy as the leader of alliance 'Krieg', which I joined - and now we're ranked 1st on the alliance list. I've been attacked a couple of times, but repelled them all - it's been pretty easy going so far.
As for Mechreign... I've actually played that game before. In this game you're the leader of a team of mech pilots who engage in battle with other teams for money (bits). As you win battles your pilots improve and they'll gain better combat abilities - and the bits you won can be used to further upgrade your mechs (or purchase new ones) and thus your combat potential. Your own skills also improve over time - and can net you nice rewards such as a larger mech team, higher daily funding, more attacks per day or more training sessions per day. It's fairly basic, but it's pretty cool - and you only have to log in once a day to be able to compete. Best of all you can give names to your mechs, mine are being named after the Gundam models to be used in the upcoming Gundam 00 anime (airing this fall) starting with 'GN002 Dynames'.
Unreal Tournament 2004
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It's Sunday, which means that I've got the results of last week's poll - as well as a brand new poll for you to enjoy! It seems the amount of votes we're getting is fairly stable, so this will be a new weekly recurring feature from here on out... hopefully we'll steadily gather more votes and visitors ;)
Anyhow on to the results of last week's poll. As you might recall, the question I asked was 'Do you use a proper gaming mousepad?' - mainly because I recently received a new cool mousepad and those properly designed pads really do make a difference. So I wanted to see how many of you actually used one of those specially designed mousepads... it turns out a large majority of the voters did, namely: five out of seven. Now I understand why so many different mousepad-companies can remain profitable: demand is pretty high. The remaining two used.. well, something else - whatever that something else might be I'll leave up to your imagination!
As for the question this week, it's: 'Do you own a headset?'. This question was inspired by a Shadowrun (yes that horrid - on PC anyway - new shooter) review I stumbled upon, where the (Xbox fanatic) reviewer claimed that most online PC gamers do not own headsets. I think the opposite is true, if only because nearly every online gamer I know has one. So which assumption is correct? Vote and we'll find out next week! As for myself: I already revealed I couldn't imagine gaming without a surround sound headset ever again last week, so yeah - I have one alright ;)
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The Game Drone might not be just another gaming news blog, but I do touch on the most interesting PC gaming-related bits of news every week in a feature known as 'News of the Week'. It's a regular feature on Thursdays every week - and all previous (and other news-related) entries can be accessed by selecting the 'news' category in the right-hand menu. Enjoy!
Week #20
(June 7th - June 14th)
It hasn't been a very busy week in terms of news, but there's still plenty to report as usual. Best of all, there's actually quite a bit of free gaming to be had as well! Anyhow first off we have the usual game announcements ranging from
The Path to
id Tech 5 to
Project Torque. Then there's some more in-depth information on the new upcoming
SimCity game:
SimCity Societies (screenie to the left). Lastly there's the cool free games section with an
Overlord demo for the PC - as well as a lot of online gaming fun to be had with the mmorpg
Sword of the New World. Enjoy!
Game Announcements
Developer Tale of Tales has announced a peculiar new game which clearly draws it's inspiration from American McGee's Alice - called The Path. The fairytale to be utilized for this game is Little Red Ridinghood in which the player will be put in the role of a teenage red ridinghood who gets lost in the woods. However, much like Alice, this is a horror game - and as such not quite the ordinary fairytale you're used to. Not many details have been made available, but it aught to be available in the 1st quarter of 2008.
Not quite a game announcement, but certainly noteworthy, was id Software's unveiling of id Tech 5, their new game engine at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. This new engine's defining feature appears to be nigh unlimited texture resources, contrary to current game engine solutions which tend to restrict artists and designers by imposing texture size limits. The first game utilizing this technology is already on it's way, namely the thus-far unnamed new non-franchise title id Software has been working on for several years now. Snapshots of the footage shown by id Software do not seem very impressive, but apparently the entire presentation was developed in a mere 10 days time and as such not quite representative of the engine's capabilities.
Ironclad Games are currently gearing up their 4X space game Sins of a Solar Empire for it's second beta phase. Anyone who has pre-order the game from TotalGaming.net will be entered into this beta which starts on the 21st of June. Contrary to the usual beta tests - this will be a public singleplayer test - in which players get to thoroughly test the sandbox mode of the game as the Trader Emergency Coalition. The rest of us will have to wait until February 2008 - when Ironclad Games intend to have this game in stores. (Worthplaying)
Aeria Games & Entertainment have unveiled their new up-and-coming free online racing game. Project Torque is intended to start a new genre called the Competitive Online Arcade Racer and aught to enter open beta testing in July. Much like other race games you can tweak your ride to heart's content, but you can also upgrade your own racer stats depending on your wins and losses (another form of leveling I'd assume).
Simcity: Societies!
Amongst last week's announcement was a short notice of an upcoming unnamed SimCity game. A lot more has been revealed with regards to that game since then, including it's name: SimCity: Societies. Contrary to previous SimCity game this one is being developed by Tilted Mill Entertainment (known from Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile, amongst others) rather than EA Maxis (who are hard at work on Spore and The Sims 3 no doubt).
The developers also intend to offer a different gaming experience from previous SimCity games by placing more focus on the society of your towns and not as much on building and management. Players can combine their buildings (of which there are over 350 kind) to provide entirely different experiences - and these will have visible effects on the look and performance of the city. Apparently inspiration for the game comes not solely from ordinary modern day buildings, but also from fantasy and science fiction - which clearly seeps through in the game's less gritty, more cartoony, visuals - as can be seen in the screenshot above. (Worthplaying)
Free Games Section
There are two cool new free gaming experiences for you to leech this week. We'll start with the most obvious one: the Overlord demo. It has finally been released on the PC - and can be downloaded here. If you want to know what it's like before committing to downloading a full gigabyte, then head on over here for my demo review!
Not quite as obvious is a new FilePlanet promotion. They're now offering free beta test keys for the upcoming mmorpg Sword of the New World. It differs from the standard fare in quite a few ways, not in the least of which that each player is in control over a full party - not to mention the setting, which is based on the early European exploration of America. Care to join in on the fun? Then head on over here and sign up!
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It turns out that Games-Masters has run into some issues during their preliminary CABAL Online closed beta testing and have thus opted to extend the closed beta test for the new free service by a week. As such any non-subscribers (CABAL was pay to play, before it closed last month) such as myself will have to wait until the 20th of June before being able to play this game. Regardless it will still be an entirely free service starting from that day - it's just a one week delay in open beta release.
More information regarding the upcoming free service mmorpg CABAL Online can be found here. Rather than the usual lame free mmorpg this one actually shows promise, mainly because it was also successful as a p2p game. So be certain to check back next week - in hopes the CABAL Online free open beta won't be delayed any further and will then finally genuinely start. See you next week!
(Please note that this version of CABAL Online is only open for European gamers. American or Asian gamers are not allowed access by Games-Masters. An American version has not been announced thus far - there are several different Asian versions which have already successfully implemented the free to play method that is to be used in the coming European version.)
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A couple of days ago Dutch game developer Triumph Studios (known from Age of Wonders) finally unleashed the PC demo of their Dungeon Keeper-inspired game Overlord on the world. In case you hadn't heard about this game: it's a third person action game of sorts, in which you are the evil overlord who has risen back to power after your predecessor's defeat. However, rather than wasting your time smashing things up to instill fear in the local populace - you'll be controlling hordes of minions to do the smashing for you.
This demo offers a tutorial as well as a segment of singleplayer gameplay from the very beginning of the game. It doesn't offer any multiplayer gameplay, which will be extensively present in the full game. Both PC and Xbox 360 demos are available, but I'll be covering the PC version of course. Upon downloading and installing this 1 GB demo, you'll be thrown into a slightly twisted, but humorous, fantasy world - if only for a short time...
The moment you start up the Overlord demo you're thrown back in time to when the Dungeon Keeper series was still around. Rather than some bland company promotion screens, Triumph opted for a more humorous - albeit not entirely original - approach by letting the in-game minions handle the introductions. 
It's a nice added touch that gets you pumped for some evil rampages across the idyllic countrysides of the Overlord game world, watching your minions smash everything to bits... but is that really what it's like?
Not quite, but we'll get to that later, first up in this demo is the tutorial. After having been dug out from the ground by your minions, you meet your adviser minion who guides you through the basic gameplay elements such as minion control and combat. It's not very extensive, but then this game doesn't seem to be very complex either - and it certainly explains everything clearly. In this regard it's several light years (pun intended) ahead of the last demo I reviewed - there's no way you'll be confused in this demo!
After completing the tutorial segment you'll travel back to your seat of power, eloquently named 'the tower', where your adviser explains that a vital power source for your tower's teleportation mechanism is missing. 
It just so happens that enough energy is left in there to teleport you to the last known location of this 'Tower's Heart' and thus starts your first quest: retrieve the power source - to begin your conquest of the world, har har!
Upon arriving at your destination it's revealed that you can spawn minions from set spawning points on the map - and initially you'll be stuck with one (of four) minion types, namely the Brown attackers. The rest cannot be unlocked in this demo, but apparently have to be discovered later on. As you walk about the - rather linear - world and have your minions smash sheep for life force (used to gain more minions) or barrels/whatever else for weaponry and items you're swiftly sidetracked into helping a farmer reclaim his mine from evil halflings.
This is where Overlord starts differing from my expectations quite a bit. Even in the short gameplay segment featured in this demo you spend quite some time helping out the local populace against greater evils, supposedly to gain their loyalty. Apparently you can kill these people, but that works against you later on in the game. Not quite as evil as I had hoped, but somehow it's not entirely all that disappointing either.
Even though you're not actually slaughtering the local populace and roaming about the countryside, the Overlord demo does prove quite enjoyable. There's humor in some of the assignments you're handed out (such as kicking about your jester to make him respect you) and it's just fun watching your horde of minions race in and pillage everything in sight. 
After destroying a couple of barrels they'll return to you with gifts like gold coins and potions, but they'll also use some parts as armor or weaponry - with the infamous melon-heads being the preferred option for minions in the demo...
Further enjoyable is the interactivity of the world. While it does all come across quite scripted, it's cool to see your minions push against a fallen pillar to move it out of your way - or to smash your axe through a wall so that it falls and forms a bridge over a river. Best of all has to be setting fire to ricefields to annihilate the evil halflings in the area (although I unintentionally also torched some of my own followers - ah well, you can just summon some back anyway).
Towards the end of the demo you're even allowed to replenish health and mana by sacrificing your minions, who happily jump to their deaths for your sake. And then you're even faced by a boss-type creature who smashes through your minions like they're nothing - so you have to engage in battle yourself, smashing it with your axe as your minions surround it and try to do what little damage they can. A pretty cool fight and a promise of things to come... to bad that combat sequence also marks the end of the demo.
And with that we've arrived at the less enjoyable aspects of Overlord's demo. Contrary to what you might expect from a 1 GB file this demo really only provides enough gameplay for half an hour tops (probably less for most players). It's also not very replayable, because the experience is very linear - and exploration really is limited to just a bunch of small side roads with crates to smash or sheep to kill. 
Although the ending sequence promoting the full version does seem to suggest less slightly linearity further in the game, it does seem to be a very story-restricted game, rather than an open-ended slaughterfest like Dungeon Keeper. It's also a bit goody for a supposed evil game, but that doesn't necessarily detract from the experience.
Another aspect of Overlord's gameplay that felt a bit weird, although not necessarily bad, was actually controlling your overlord and his minions. Somehow the mouse control felt quite unresponsive and not having any form of crosshair or mouse pointer on screen didn't seem to fit with the kind of game this is. On the other hand it's cool that the game is entirely based around context-sensitive actions - and as such seems pretty intelligent. Pointing at crates will have your minions smash them, pointing at a broken pillar will have them move it, pointing at loot will have them carry it back to you and locking on to a mana shrine will send in one of your minions for a mana boost. I suppose it's just a matter of getting used to this form of control, but it still felt like there was a distinct lack of control without a crosshair or pointer on screen.
In the end the Overlord demo proves to offer an enjoyable 30 minutes of gameplay, but not without it's flaws. I rather liked the demo in spite of it's flaws, but it's probable that some amongst you will not. It's not quite a masterpiece of brilliantly evil gameplay like Dungeon Keeper was, but it's the next best thing. Hopefully the full version will turn out to improve on the linearity aspect - in which case it should certainly prove to be an entertaining experience.
Gameplay 7/10
Graphics 8/10
Sound 8/10
Story 6/10
Value - 72%
(Note: amongst the above-mentioned scores Value stands for the entertainment derived from this game. That is my final score - and is not reflective of previous scores for other aspects of the game. The only thing that matters in the end is the enjoyability of a game - and I wanted to represent that by means of a Value score. Also note that all scores are based on the '5 is average' model, so a 7 is far from bad.)
Related Entries:
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As usual the Screenshot of the Week feature returns once more, with another cool new screenshot for you to enjoy. This time around I've uploaded a screenshot from a game we'll all (well, us Europeans anyway) be able to enjoy for free in a couple of days! Anyhow if you want to know all the tiny details then just read on below the picture, otherwise just scroll down and enjoy. See you next week for another screenshot!
Week #20
CABAL Online
Story: There's not actually a genuine story behind this screenshot, because it's from the official website! Still it's a pretty good example of what CABAL is like - very stylized and action-packed with some pretty wacky classes. The couple of months I spend playing were most enjoyable - and the stylized visuals really made it feel like you were engaged inside one of those Japanese anime shows. Anyhow - I thought it'd be a good idea to pick a CABAL Online picture as screenshot of the week to remind everyone that the open beta will be available in two days! Be certain not to miss out if you're European! (unfortunately Americans cannot play this game in any form right now)
Game: I discussed this game about a month ago when it was announced that it'd be released for free to the European public. CABAL Online is an action-focused mmorpg which features anime-esque visual effects and styling combined in one package, along with gameplay that's slightly different from the norm. You can read more about this rather enjoyable online game here - and it aught to be available for free download by the 13th of June from it's official website.
Update: Bah I missed out on a new notice - CABAL Online won't be in open beta until the 20th (due to unforeseen circumstances). So yes people, one more week and it should be live.
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Another week, another poll - so here are the results of last week's poll, as well as a brand new poll, for you to enjoy! We didn't get quite as many votes in this week as we did last week, but it's still up to a respectable six votes. I suppose it was a bit of an odd topic to vote about anyway... so moving on to the results!
Last week's question was: 'Do you prefer compstomps over regular online play?' with the possible answers of yes, no & I don't know. Not a lot of people considered compstomps more enjoyable than the usual online play - as only one person voted yes. Two further people didn't really know which one to pick, whereas the victors this week were the naysayers - with three votes. Personally I'd belong in that camp as well - I don't think a compstomp can really compare to the thrill of proper online play in good games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein or Unreal Tournament. A bit of compstomping every once in a while is certainly fun though.
This week we'll be featuring a slightly different - and easier - question: 'Do you use a proper gaming mousepad?' with the usual three possible answers. No - a piece of cardboard does not qualify as a proper gaming mousepad, think icemat or steelpad instead. Leave your vote behind in the right-hand menu - and see you next week when I discuss the results!
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Here's yet another new Game of the Week feature, as usual! In case you didn't know - every week I write up an entry about the games I played in the past week. Out of all those games one ends up receiving the title of Game of the Week. So if you're interested in knowing what this blogger played in the past week, in between writing blog posts then please do read on!
Week #20
(May 4th - June 9th)
Contrary to the
past week I touched a couple of different games this week - and
Guild Wars: Nightfall kinda fell out of the list. As usual
Unreal Tournament 2004 took up the bulk of my gaming time, but I also got some time in with another
Neverwinter Nights module called
Rose of Eternity. I hope to have a review of that one up sometime next week
(if I play through it by then). Lastly I played a bit of
Spaceforce: Rogue Universe, or the demo anyway.
The UT2004 experience was as varied as last week, with several Team Arena Master matches (all of which we lost, heh) - accompanied by many dozens of InstaGib Capture the Flag games as well as a bunch of DeathMatch games. I even tried some InstaGib Invasion again, which was pretty cool. It's been a great week of UT fun, although a couple of noobs (mainly from the 'APOTA' clan) tried to ruin it on iCTF pubs. Anyhow, I met a bunch of cool people like Destrictor and my former TuF mates... while ranking top 3 across the board. I doubt I'll tire of this any time soon, not before Unreal Tournament 3 is released anyway.
In terms of Spaceforce: Rogue Universe - well I played the demo for about an hour or two and got my first (and last) impressions in. If you've always wanted to know what a truly horrible game is like - then by all means read my review of this demo. Games really don't get much worse than this... but hey, at least the review was fun to write :)
Lastly is Neverwinter Nights: Rose of the Eternity which I decided to play next - and was a very pleasant surprise. It's completely different from the original game in terms of play style and storytelling, but works amazingly well - at least for now. I haven't gotten too far yet, but so far it seems very promising - and deserves to be the Game of the Week if only for it's amazingly well-scripted cutscenes. I hope to have a review up sometime next week.
Neverwinter Nights:
Rose of Eternity
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I finally got around to trying out the demo for the recently released space simulation game Spaceforce: Rogue Universe after downloading it a couple of weeks ago. It's been a long time since we've seen another space sim, with both X3: Reunion and Darkstar One already having been release well over a year ago. As such quite a few people were looking forward to this game for their renewed space sim-fix. I myself am quite the fan of space games - so I had been hoping this would be a great new game to buy as well...
The demo features a small segment of gameplay from the story mode - in which you play as an EMD-aligned (think military superstate) pilot who has lost his father to the Union Forces (think righteous freedom fighters of democracy) and is searching for his sister. In the full version a 'free mode' is included which allows you to ignore the storyline altogether and probably align yourself with other factions (and even races) as well. Anyhow in both versions you'll be selecting a career for your character from the outset, which dictates their starting abilities (such as a higher wingman cap, higher base speed, etc.).
And that's when the game starts. Well, first you're thrown into a CGI-intro scene, which is supposed to get you pumped for the storyline. 
Too bad it fails in every respect. Ranging from the poor voice acting to the horrid dialogue to the CGI-visuals that might have been impressive in 1998! Provox Games have clearly attempted to imitate Digital Anvil's Starlancer (2000) in terms of style, but failed miserably - even in terms of visual quality it's several steps down, at least.
After this horrible intro scene you're thrown into what's supposed to be a tutorial sequence. Some instruction bot tells you that you can fire and select targets and whatnot else, but never once mentions a single button assignment - as such you have to memorize all button assignments prior to ever playing the game! Worst of all is that descriptions for button assignments in the options menu are incomplete leaving you with a major problem trying to complete the first objective. How do you remote-activate satellites you can't select, when there's also not an interact button? Apparently you have to dock with them... yeah that makes sense... not.
Prior to the remote-activation-docking sequence you get to fight a bunch of space pirates... and that's possibly even worse. There is no simple way of selecting targets, other than waiting for them to fire at you and then select an attacker... even then it's difficult to tell between selected targets and regular enemies. Worse still is that it's nigh impossible to determine where enemies are if you don't have them selected, because the radar is a piece of crap sphere-device which fails to indicate height difference.
So you've finally found your opponent and got him locked down... good going, that's the easiest part. Next is trying to maneuver your small fighter out of the enemies' way as they crash into you time and time again. That's a pain in the ass, because your small 'nimble' fighter moves similar to what you'd expect for a 50 square kilometer space colony - side thrusters have no noticeable effect and rolling occurs at a snail's pace - if at all. Further hampering you from properly engaging in combat is deceleration, which cannot be done by pressing and holding the button, but only by bashing it fifty million times in short succession. 
Combat in Rogue Universe feels very unresponsive - and worst of all: your enemies and allies don't suffer from the same limitations and are actually playing Starlancer or Independence War - so you're outmaneuvered at every turn.
The enjoyability of combat in this game is further 'enhanced' by a severe lack of punch on every beginning weapon, even against the weak ships that get thrown at you from the very first second of play. Your attackers aren't just faster and more agile, but they also do shitloads more damage regardless of your angle of attack. Worse still, missiles are practically useless - doing less damage than lasers! Now I know these are the very first few minutes of the game, but this kind of introduction would put off the most hardened of space sim fans - including myself. Granted it was slightly more difficult than normal on this PC, due to my mouse's high sensitivity (2000 DPI Logitech G5 at 1000 Hz) - ensuring that it was nigh impossible to keep a lock on anything.
Does that sound bad? You've seen nothing yet. Worse still is the options menu: in the demo it cannot be accessed from within the game - so every setting change has to occur prior to starting the game. Unfortunately none of the visual options carry any form of identifying tooltips - so you just turn them all on for the best possible visuals, right? NO. Turning everything on ensures that the game looks worse than the previously mentioned game from 2000 (Starlancer). And even on optimal settings this game looks noticeably worse than both X3 and Darkstar One. Although it does perform significantly better - I can even play it at maximum settings on my preferred resolution (1600x1200) with zero performance hit.
Similarly off-putting are the sound effects and voices. Not only is the voice acting subpar (albeit not quite as bad as say... Star Wolves - although it has to be said that that game was actually fun) but both sound effects and voices are washed out by background music. 
You have to turn down music volume a lot if you want to hear anything properly. If it weren't for the other gazillion flaws this wouldn't be so bad, but it just screams lack of polish when the standard setting ensure that you won't hear shit.
Visibility is also near-zero, which means you have to crank up the gamma quite a bit if you want to see any ships, rather than pure darkness. Yeah space is dark, but at least make the damn ships visible! What's the point of playing a new 3D-game when all you see are red and blue rectangles - oh and some laser and missile fire... I want to see SHIPS - why should I play this game and not Elite!?
So is there nothing positive I have to say for this game? Well there are two cool things... first are the 2000 different star systems, which is a lot - and definitely cool for explorers, well... if the rest of the game was playable anyway. Then there's their new take on anti-missile systems - in the form of an EMP field generator. It looks cool and it's something new, but it doesn't make any sense at all. How come a massive EMP field generated in a several hundred meter radius around your craft shuts down any small devices (missiles), but doesn't interfere with your own equipment? Magic EMP shielding that for some mysterious reason isn't used by those same friggin' missiles!? Right...
So what's the verdict on Spaceforce: Rogue Universe? Don't waste your money! No, the full version won't be a significant improvement, because the demo was released just 2 weeks prior to release and based on a recent build. This is by far the worst space sim I have ever seen - and isn't even worth purchasing as a coaster for your drinks while you're off exploring the vast depths of EVE Online (or some other good space game) because that might give it's developers the crazy idea that their game is worthy of a sequel. Sure you can go give the demo a try yourself if you want to, but be warned: it will just just be a waste of perfectly good free space.
Gameplay 1/10
Graphics 6/10
Sound 4/10
Story 4/10
Value - 15%
(Note: amongst the above-mentioned scores Value stands for the entertainment derived from this game. That is my final score - and is not reflective of previous scores for other aspects of the game. The only thing that matters in the end is the enjoyability of a game - and I wanted to represent that by means of a Value score)
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The Game Drone might not be just another gaming news blog, but I do touch on the most interesting PC gaming-related bits of news every week in a feature known as 'News of the Week'. It's a regular feature on Thursdays every week - and all previous (and other news-related) entries can be accessed by selecting the 'news' category in the right-hand menu. Enjoy!
Week #19
(June 1st - June 7th)
A new week means lot's more news... and this week is no different. There are quite a few random game announcements to cover, as well as some more free gaming to be had. Best of all you can enjoy a great free video from the guys over at
QuadV. So in this week are a new
SimCity game, an interesting upcoming strategy game by the name of
WorldShift, several unknown Russian games and a bunch of other random interesting things - like
DirectX 10 patches for Company of Heroes - omfg! Still not quite as memorable a week as some of the ones we've had earlier, but it's about on par with
last week - although there's a bit less free gaming this time :(
Game Announcements
There's quite a bunch of short game announcements to cover this week, so let's get right to it. Let's kick off with SimCity. Apparently the new Games for Windows cover features a new upcoming SimCity game. Unfortunately no one really knows what this game will be like or even what it's called just yet - so we'll have to wait for a while until the latest Games for Windows issue hits.
Next is Black Sea Studios which has announced a new Sci-Fi RTS called WorldShift. The game will feature three seperate races (two human and one which appears to be alien) - and takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth. Apparently it's mainly geared towards fast and accessible play, although it does seem to offer a few interesting innovations, such as variable technology trees. Check out the official website for more information and the very pretty pictures. I do hope they intend to release this very soon however, because otherwise this will inevitably be overshadowed by Starcraft 2.
Assassin's Creed will apparently be released in November this year and it's limited edition will be packed in a tin box. This limited edition will contain some Penny Arcade comics, an Altair figure, a mini strategy guide and some of the usual collector's edition videos (making of and whatnot else). I don't know if any of you are planning to get this for PC, but at least now you know when it's due - on all platforms.
Atari has signed a new interesting indie-game for a summer release. Threadspace: Hyperbol had been on my radar a while ago, but I never got around to testing along in beta. Now it appears this unique multiplayer space-combat (top-down) game has been recognized by the big names - and will be appearing in stores soon. If you've been whining about a lack of innovation in games, or a lack of space-based games, or both - then this is what you've been waiting for. Visit the official site here.
Also interesting are three new releases (at least on the Western European market) which appear to have gone by entirely unnoticed. Just a couple of days ago the Russian games of You Are Empty, Ascension to the Throne & Star Wolves 2 have been unleashed upon gamers across Western Europe. You Are Empty is a first person shooter and probably the only name you'll recognize, Ascension to the Throne is some sort of turn-based RPG and Star Wolves 2 is a space-based RPG (which is actually very cool because it improves on it's enjoyable predecessor on all fronts, except voice acting - which still sucks horribly). All three games seem to have been made available at slightly lower-than-usual prices.
Patching is Important!
At least according to Relic Entertainment which has finally unleashed the new version 1.7 patch for Company of Heroes upon it's fanbase. Contrary to being just another regular bug-fixing & balance-altering strategy game patch - this patch also finally introduces DirectX 10 support! So if you have Windows Vista and a DX10 card, then you'll definitely want to get this patch as soon as possible - here.
Another company which appears to take it's patching seriously is Turbine which should be unleashing it's massive Shores of Evendim content patch for Lord of the Rings Online next week. Aside from adding a massive (by LotRO standards) new area and a large amount of new quests, monsters and items - it also introduces a new raid instance and changes to monster play and the music system. They have also recently announced interested in adding player housing to the game in either a future patch, or (more likely) an actual expansion pack. June 14th is the date for this patch... hopefully you LotRO fans will enjoy it.
Free Gaming and new Top Gear!
Let's start with free gaming, which comes in the form of a multiplayer demo for Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2. It's a pretty large install, considering that it only offers a single map in two game modes. Anyhow, fans of the franchise aught to check it out here. You can expect the full game to be released on June 28th.
In entirely different news, Top Gear now has a gaming variant! The guys over at QuadV (the wellknown new shoutcasting station) have seen fit to create an awesome video demonstrating some truly hardcore hardware testing. It's a cool 30 minute show made by ReDeYe (former Quake 4 clannie!), Shedboy, RubberChicken and Joe - and you'd do well to view the on-demand video version here. Be warned that this is a video containing mature content with quite a bit of harsh language, definitely not safe for work - but then, is anything from QuadV ever really safe for work? ;)
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Does that sound odd to you? I thought it might. Strangely it seems that nearly every gamer I talk to about my recent headsets doesn't have a clue that there are such thing as 'surround sound supportive headsets' out there. And we're not talking about some fake sort of stereo simulation either, but genuine high quality surround sound - in a headset. While this might all sound strange to you, these headsets have been around for a few years now...
However these are headsets we're talking about, not genuine speaker sets - they couldn't possibly provide similar sound quality, right? Well... yes and no. Yes, you won't be enjoying awesome hard bass from your subwoofer and some of the finer surround sound effects can get lost - particularly in the less expensive headsets. No, because these are headsets and as such eliminate nearly all outside noise - providing much clearer surround sound than with a regular speaker set. So is it worth getting one of these over your regular stereo headset? Read on to find out...
In recent years I had been gaming with popular headsets such as the Sennheiser PC140 and PC160, which many gamers use for proper gameplay, especially in online shooters. All was well and good, until my PC160 broke and I needed a replacement (this was roughly half a year ago). So I looked around nearby stores and found a sickeningly expensive, but strangely alluring package amongst them: the Razer Barracuda. I had been using Razer mice for years and had heard some promising rumors about it, so I decided to gamble the $130 pricetag and get it anyway...
I haven't touched a stereo headset since - there really is no going back once you buy one of these. My Barracuda easily rivals the Creative 6.1 speaker set I have on every front other than bass, which it makes up for in noise reduction... besides the speaker set features too much bass anyway (the entire house shakes from it, literally). Apparently it manages to offer this kind of sound quality by means of 8 sonic drivers - and other surround sound headsets utilize similar means of providing surround sound: multiple sound generators on each end providing a surround experience as genuine as any surround speaker set.
Apart from improving my gaming experience by providing much higher quality sound than regular stereo headsets and offering a more involving experience, it's actually allowed me to perform better in certain games as well. 
In first person shooter games, particularly when playing competitively, you'll want to know where the enemy is coming from. Nothing proves more effective for this than a surround sound headset: you can hear where your enemy is coming from - almost to the pixel.
When I play UT2004 I can now line up my shots even before I ever see my opponent - rather than just knowing the general direction and having to rely on my eyes to tell me where they are precisely. Oh and being surprised from behind... that's not happening nearly as much either now that I can hear them coming from wherever. It's a totally different gaming experience, allowing for much more tactical play - even in random public servers (although it gets more difficult to separate the noise as the player count increases).
Does this mean you have to go out and get a surround headset right now for the best possible gaming experience? No, of course not. It's a cool gimmick that can really help out your gaming - and make the whole experience a lot more engaging... but it's far from necessary. Furthermore, far from every surround headset is worth having. I've also tried the Speedlink Medusa 5.1 USB headset and that sucked both in sound quality and build quality (it's overhead strap tends to break eventually, same goes for most other Speedlink sets) - you'll really want to avoid those USB headsets at all cost... the only good surround headset are the ones you plug in with half a dozen connectors to your sound card.
This brings me to the main drawback of owning a surround headset: the connectors. If you have a soundcard that supports surround sound then you'll likely also have a speaker set plugged into that. If you want to have both your speaker set and surround headset available and working at the same time then you'll need splitters for each connector - that's three splitters and quite the mess behind your PC. Not a pretty sight - but it's a gamer's heaven if you appreciate good sound while gaming (or not gaming for that matter, because it's great for music and videos as well).
Lastly - be warned if you're going to buy one such surround headset. You'll likely end up never wanting any other kind of headset anymore, which means you might have to be a bit picky in the future. In fact, most stores around here don't sell any surround headsets at all - except for one... and this is a pretty major city (8th largest in The Netherlands) so it can be quite hard to get your hands on one of them headsets. Anyhow if you're wondering how that Barracuda performs - check back next week when I should have a hardware review for it on this very blog...
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Welcome to the latest, most up-to-date, list of release dates for all the most interesting upcoming PC games on The Game Drone. As I do every month I've uploaded a fully updated release date list with some entirely new games and many changed dates corresponding to current press statements. Do remember that these release dates are subject to change - depending on the decisions the developers/publishers of these games make along the road. Also note that these are European release dates and the North American release can be a couple of days (or even months) earlier or later in some cases.
As usual a couple of games dropped from the list because they were actually released on schedule - and others were added because they were recently announced. As such we have a slightly different picture than last month, with this month's newcomers being games like CABAL Online, Mercenaries 2 & Starcraft 2. Just about any upcoming PC game you might be interested in should be listed by now (except for the really obscure ones) so let's just hope some of those developers decide to actually stick to them release dates. Anyhow, the fall season got even more crowded this month (what with Call of Duty 4, Mercenaries 2 and some other games joining the fall season's offerings) - and if we don't see an incredible amount of delays we'll be seeing an insane amount of PC game sales this fall - almost rivaling 1999's fall season. PC gaming's dead? Hell no, it's never been better!
Note: I've also taken the liberty of referring to further information for some games in the list - just click the names of linked titles for some nice previews, screenshots or whatever else was linked to them... enjoy!
- Age of Conan - October 30th 2007
- Aion: The Tower of Eternity - 2008
- Alan Wake - 2008
- American McGee's Grimm Tales - 1st Quarter of 2008
- Assassin's Creed - Late 2007
- BioShock - August 24th 2007
- Blacksite: Area 51 - September 2007
- CABAL Online - June 13th 2007
- Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat - Fall 2007
- Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword - July 27th 2007
- Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts - Fall 2007
- Clive Barker's Jericho - Fall 2007
- Cryostasis - 2008
- Crysis - Fall 2007
- Defcon retail edition - June 8th 2007
- Devil May Cry 4 - Fall 2007
- Dragon Age - 1st Quarter of 2008
- Drakensang: The Dark Eye - 1st Quarter of 2008
- Elveon - Summer 2007
- Empire Earth III - Fall 2007
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars - Summer 2007
- EverQuest 2: Rise of Kunark - November 2007
- Evil Under the Sun - October 2007
- Exodus from the Earth - 2008
- Fallout 3 - 2009
- Far Cry 2 - 2008
- Frontlines: Fuel of War - Fall 2007
- Galactic Assault - Fall 2007
- Galactic Command: Talon Elite - Late 2007
- Gears of War - 2008
- Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 - June 2007
- Gods & Heroes - Summer 2007
- Gray Matter - 1st Quarter of 2008
- Guild Wars: Eye of the North - Fall 2007
- Guild Wars 2 - 2009
- Half Life 2: Episode 2 - Fall 2007
- Hard to be a God - September 2007
- Haze - 2008
- Heavy Rain - 2008
- Hei$t - Fall 2007
- Hellgate London - September 2007
- Hero - 2nd Quarter of 2008
- Hero's Journey - Late 2007
- Heroes of Might & Magic V: Tribes of the East - Fall 2007
- Hollow - 2007
- Hospital Tycoon - June 2007
- Hydrophobia - 2008
- Interstellar Marines - 2007
- Jagged Farm - Summer 2007
- King's Bounty - Late 2007
- Left 4 Dead - 2007
- LEGO Universe - Summer 2008
- Loki - 2nd Quarter of 2007
- Lost Planet - June 2007
- Mata Hari - 2008
- Medal of Honor: Airborne - August 28th 2007
- Medieval II: Kingdoms - Fall 2007
- Mercenaries 2: World in Flames - Fall 2007
- NecrovisioN - 2008
- Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer - Fall 2007
- Officers - Fall 2007
- Operation Flashpoint 2 - 2008
- Overlord - June 29th 2007
- POSTAL III - 2008
- Precursors - Fall 2007
- Sabotage - Late 2007
- Saboteur - 2008
- Sacred 2: Fallen Angel - 1st Quarter of 2008
- Sam & Max: Season 1 - August 2007
- Savage 2: A Tortured Soul - Summer 2007
- Settlers VI: Rise of an Empire - September 2007
- Shattered Suns - October 5th 2007
- Sinking Island - September 2007
- Sins of a Solar Empire - February 2008
- Space Force: Rogue Universe - Fall 2007
- Speedball 2 (remake) - Fall 2007
- Splinter Cell: Conviction - 2008
- Spore - 2008
- Starcraft 2 - 2008
- Stargate Worlds - 2008
- Stranglehold - Summer 2007
- Sun Age - September 2007
- Sword of the Stars: Born of Blood - June 2007
- Tabula Rasa - October 2007
- Team Fortress 2 - Fall 2007
- The Chronicles of Spellborn - Summer 2007
- The Golden Horde - Late 2007
- The Path - 1st Quater of 2008
- The Show - 2nd Quarter of 2007
- The Tomorrow War - 2007
- The Witcher - September 2007
- Tom Clancy's EndWar - 1st Quarter of 2008
- Turning Point: Fall of Liberty - Late 2007
- Universe at War: Earth Assault - Fall 2007
- Unreal Tournament 3 - Late 2007
- Warhammer Online - 1st Quarter of 2008
- WitcheS - 2008
- Wolfenstein 2 - 2008
- World in Conflict - Fall 2007
As you can see the list of upcoming PC games keeps getting bigger and bigger - not to mention more impressive. You better start playing any games you might have purchased recently, or you might never get around to them again! Let's just hope most of the release dates mentioned above stick - and don't slide off any further...
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As usual the Screenshot of the Week feature returns once more, with another cool new screenshot for you to enjoy. This time around we've got one from Jedi Academy - and a pretty old shot at that - but it's cool nonetheless, mainly for the context. Anyhow if you want to know all the tiny details then just read on below the picture, otherwise just scroll down and enjoy. See you next week for another screenshot!
Week #19
Jedi Knight:
Jedi Academy
Story: This screenshot was made back when my Jedi Academy team Dutch Jedi Masters was still around and had the most popular Siege server in Europe. This team went into retirement three months in due to a lack of challenge (70 matches, 70 victories) but this must have been one of our most memorable moments. You can't really see in this picture, but our team consists of just those three players, whereas the other team contained over 11 players from the best clans in Europe (aside from ours)... and we held our ground losing only a single objective to the advancing rebel scum. Aaah if only we could be treated to a new Jedi Knight game...
Game: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy is a nearly five year old first person shooter set in the Star Wars universe, some time after the final movie. It was sort of an evolutionary step forward from the excellent and very well-received first person shooter game Jedi Knight 2 - and received similar praise for it's implementation of a new mission structure, new game modes and new lightsaber styles. It was well worth the money, if only for the engaging singleplayer campaign that had you create a new character and fight off remnants of the Empire throughout the universe. In multiplayer it proved similarly enjoyable with flashy lightsaber battles mixed up by fire from all sorts of laser guns and all sorts of funny force powers at a pace similar to Quake 3.
One multiplayer game mode was of particular interest - a game mode called Siege which took after Return to Castle Wolfenstein's objective-based gameplay. The Rebels were matched up against the Imperials, each with their own unique classes and abilities, and both teams competed over various objectives across the maps. Unfortunately it never became a very popular game for competitions, otherwise you'd still have seen a Dutch Jedi Masters clan around today - likely loaded with sponsors (as we received no less than three sponsorship offers and several high level competition invitations - only a month after we stopped playing). Who knows - maybe we'll get to see a Jedi Knight 5 some day...
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Here's yet another new Game of the Week feature, as usual! In case you didn't know - every week I write up an entry about the games I played in the past week. Out of all those games one ends up receiving the title of Game of the Week. So if you're interested in knowing what this blogger played in the past week, in between writing blog posts then please do read on!
Week #19
(May 26th - June 4th)
I only really touched two game
s during the past week - and they're the ones you've probably come to expect every week. That's right, just like
last week we have
Guild Wars: Nightfall and
Unreal Tournament 2004 taking control over the
'Game of the Week' feature. It's strangely unfortunate that
UT2004 is such a complete package, because it can really keep you hooked for weeks on end - only to find out that you haven't really given any of your other, more recent, games a try yet. Hopefully I'll get to that, or some more of those
Neverwinter Nights modules in the coming weeks
Contrary to previous weeks this time I played a much more varied diet of Unreal Tournament 2004. Not a whole lot of Team Arena Master (which unfortunately also resulted in the clan losing it's 2 most recent matches) but a couple of DeathMatch games and quite a bit of Instagib Capture the Flag. It's good to finally see some of those ludicrous kills and dominating sprees grace my monitor again, rather than having to settle for the occasional dark horse or double kill.
I have one major gripe with the current state of UT2004 servers however and that is that nearly all of them are poorly setup. (Team) DeathMatch servers are generally running for the demo version, with fraglimits of 25 (way too low) and no UTComp mutator. Instagib Capture the Flag servers on the other hand tend to be running either lowgravity or CTF-FaceClassic (best referred to as CTF-NoobClassic) or worse: both - oh and a few of them have no map voting running either, offering only very poorly chosen maplists. It would be nice if server admins would bother equipping their servers with at least halfway decent settings, because right now just those settings are probably scaring 80% of the community away from public play.
Then there's Guild Wars: Nightfall. Now that my Dervish has reached level 20 and completed the first five missions rather easily - we're finally well on our way in the story. Most of the time I spent playing Guild Wars was spend on a run to Droknar's Forge however, as I didn't really have any useful skills for the opponents in that area - and we stubbornly advanced with 60% Death Penalty. After many hours we finally reached Droknar, with help of three of my heroes (and an armada of minions) only for the guy I was running with to find out that he needed to be someplace else for his 15K armor... doh, I could've told him that from the start! Ah well, at least we had fun!
Guild Wars:
Nightfall
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As promised here are the results of last week's poll - and a brand new poll to change things up! I didn't really expect the poll to do well, considering that we're not getting an awful lot of comments here, but it received 10 votes after all - so it's doing a lot better than expected thus far. Be certain to keep those votes coming, all it takes is a mere click anyway!
The question for this first trial week was: "Are you excited about Starcraft II?". We got in 10 different votes spread between 'Hell Yeah!', 'Not really' and simply 'No'. The remaining options ('I guess' and 'I don't know') received 0 votes. As I had anticipated the 'Hell Yeah!' option proved most popular with six votes, whereas the other two options gathered two votes each. Looks like we have a bunch of people really looking forward to this Starcraft 2 thing, even though it won't come out this year.
For now this poll business will still be on a trial run - if it picks up a bit more then it'll probably become a permanent weekly thing, otherwise I might push it back to every other week. Anyhow, for now I'll be updating every week - so this week's poll revolves around the following question: "Do you prefer compstomps over regular online play?". In case you don't know what a compstomp is: think skirmish matches against computer controlled opponents, usually alongside friends/other players in your team. Regular online play would of course be playing against actual people. Now leave your vote behind on the right and check back next week for the results!
See you next week!
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The Game Drone might not be just another gaming news blog, but I do touch on the most interesting PC gaming-related bits of news every week in a feature known as 'News of the Week'. It's a regular feature on Thursdays every week - although a bit late this particular week, hehe - and all previous (and other news-related) entries can be accessed by selecting the 'news' category in the right-hand menu. Enjoy!
Week #18
(May 24th - June 1st)
Where
last week was defined by a single game announcement
(Starcraft 2 of course) this week is one of a few small revelations and lots of free gaming! Apart from the announcement of
LEGO Universe and some release date-related statements there isn't much to report on... well, aside from nearly half a dozen new beta tests and demos for you to try! What this week lacks in terms of announcements - it more than makes up for in
free games, there's tons of free fun to be had!
Game Announcements
NetDevil's upcoming LEGO mmo has been unveiled in a Danish article. LEGO Universe as it's called should be released in mid-2008 and will combine gaming, building and social networking in one online package. It's being developed in close cooperation with fans of the franchise to ensure that it will be an enjoyable package for LEGO enthusiasts. No further details were revealed, so things still remain a bit sketchy. (Worthplaying)
In entirely different news three widely anticipated games have had some peculiar release date announcements. You see, rather than announcing an actual release date - all three developers instead opted to state when it won't be released. So without further ado: the new Wolfenstein game will not be released before 2008. Starcraft II will not be released in 2007. And Unreal Tournament 3 will not be released before September. Now all we need are the actual release dates...
Plenty of Beta Testing
No less than three different developers decided to open up closed beta testing applications this week. Firstly there's the PvP-mmorpg Fury which already had alpha test sign-ups opened, but has apparently now advanced to beta testing stages, you can sign up here. Then there's the European beta test for Warhammer Online for which you can sign up here on the new websites. Lastly we have Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising which is still seeking further closed beta testers - sign up here.
And Some Free Games!
After last week's Dungeon Runners we now get treated to several entirely different free games. There are three first person shooter games for you to enjoy - as well as a new space-sim (the genre returns at long last!) demo. If you find yourself in need of some new gaming pleasure then you might want to check these games out, they're free after all!
On the first person shooter front we have a new release of the free shooter Nexuiz. Think Quake meets Unreal Tournament and you've got a pretty decent idea of what it's like. Contrary to WarSow this game looks a tad more modern, but is also - in my opinion - not quite as enjoyable. There's also a nice treat from Valve for ATi Radeon owners. Effective immediately you can download Half Life 2: DeathMatch and Half Life 2: Lost Coast if your computer is using an ATi Radeon graphics card. Grab your copy here.
Lastly there is a long-awaited demo of Spaceforce: Rogue Universe which is the first space-sim I've seen in a long time. I can't really tell you anything about how it plays just yet, but it definitely looks gorgeous - almost on par with X3! However contrary to the space-sims of old this appears to be a RPG which could mean indirect controls. Anyhow - fans of space games will definitely want to give it a try so go get it here.
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