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September 14th 2008 15:29
"Don't shoot! Let 'em burn!
The latest game out of the Crytek sweatshops has just been released, and IGN were fast on its heels with their review by Jason Ocampo.
Attracting an "Outstanding" rating of 9.4, Crysis' story runs parallel to the original game, but takes place on the other side of the island, and from the perspective of Michael "Psycho" Sykes, the crazed British lunatic from the first game.
In his review, Ocampo draws attention to the increase in cinematic quality, thicker and more frequent action, and of course the increased visual quality which we have come to expect from Crysis' developers. Ocampo notes also that this increase in graphics comes with a performance increase when compared to its predecessor, so hats off to the guys at Crytek for pulling that one off.
Check out the review here.
September 12th 2008 14:41
Taking a break from Spore, I realised that there are two things:
1) Other games
2) No shortage of unoriginal other games
One game which I believe does not fit into the second category is Demigod, due out sometime in 2009. The game is being published by Stardock games, famed for their brilliant 4x4 work with Galactic Civilisations, and hybrid RTS/4x4 Sins of a Solar Empire. The game is being developed by Gas Powered Games, headed by Chris Taylor, the visionary developer behind arguably one of the best RTS games of all time, Total Annihilation.
The basic story of Demigod is, God is dead. Now you, one of his children, must duke it out between your siblings for a chance to become the Almighty.
While the game is being designed as an RTS, it isn't your traditional strategy game. The idea behind it is that you are in control of one of the Demigods, and your character will be supremely customisable. However the majority of the fighting in-game will be performed by NPC characters, called creeps. As you upgrade your Demigod, the creeps will upgrade alongside you as you battle to destroy your opponent's fortress, at the other end of the map.
In essence, it will combine RPG elements (control of your Demigod), RTS elements (you will need to utilize your creeps and abilities to complete a set goal, all within an arena-style battlemap. All in all, slightly more interesting to me than some of the franchise returns (Dawn of War 2, et all), especially considering that I enjoyed the previous works offered up by these two companies.
Here are some screens of the game as it stands so far:
Stardock themselves have posted some interesting blog articles on IGN:
Really Long Link
Really Long Link
All in all, a game which I believe should have at least one eye kept on it. Be sure to check out the screenshots at IGN as well!
Let's continue with the review. Halfway through now!
TRIBE STAGE
"This sign means you have 10 seconds until we unleash the spears."
Congratulations, you have discovered fire and how to build things. Your chieftan (the fire-starting genius from Creature) and two of your fellow tribemates embark upon the next stage of the game. Set on one continent of your planet, you are soon surrounded by several other tribes of different species. Your goal? To take over the continent by force or charm. As you conquer or ally with the other tribles on the continent, you get to add another piece to your tribe's totem pole, as well as gain access to extra buildings and costumes. Your tribe as well undergoes a facelift to symbolise your advance through the ages and the approach of the next chapter in the game.
Sound familiar to the previous stage? Sadly that's because in terms of your game objectives, it is. I say sadly because there is of course nothing wrong with having the same objectives for a game ("Kill everything" seems to be the basic idea for most games). But you almost follow the exact same formula as Creature in order to achieve your goals, so closely in fact that it feels as though you never left Creature sometimes.
This stage does offer you a different style of gameplay. The RPG elements of Creature have been abandoned for the more RTS-type interface and controls which will come to make up the rest of Spore. Balancing tribe micromanagement with keeping an eye on your neighbours, this stage introduces to the player the idea of how strategy works within Spore, and further emphasies what you will face in the later stages, with resource-gathering and relationship managing coming to the forefront. I hate repeating myself, but the lack of depth is even more painful in this stage. You either rush the other tribe and overpower them with numbers, or you grab a bunch of instruments and play the tribe into submission.
Even within these simple gameplay goals however, I feel like there was so much that could've been done with Tribe to have increased the depth that wouldn't have resulted in the alienation of the casual gamer. After all, between learning to make fire and the rise of the technological era that is the Civ stage... there were a few things that were skipped. While I realise that to have included everything that could've gone into the stage would've risked overshadowing the other stages of the game, I feel there simply isn't enough in this stage to encourage someone to come back and play it again.
There are positives though, as once again the stage is carried almost entirely by the little things it offers to the gamer. That unique Maxis charm oozes throughout, even from the very outset. For example, your tribe has a very small contingent of domesticated animals to begin with. I LOL'd when I saw that my domesticated animals were allies from Creature who I had gotten to join into my pack!
Maxis has found a way to cram an awful lot of personality into our creations. From facial expressions to the activities that idle tribemates will carry out, there is certainly a lot of awareness amongst the sentient creatures on the continent. There were a lot of moments which made me smile while playing this segment.. it's just a little saddening that most of them happened while I just sat there and watched my creatures fill in the time between instructions from me.
Tomorrow will be Civ stage, followed by my impressions of the Space stage and some final comments before we can safely put Spore to bed... I swear I was supposed to be writing a PC upgrade guide. Wonder what happened to that... *shakes fist* 
Continuing with the Spore review (yes it's been a few days, yes I have been hungover), I've decided to keep reviewing the game segment by segment. Today's section is..
CREATURE STAGE
[ Click here to read more ]
Hey all. Decided I needed to jump onto the Spore review bandwagon and post an account of my own experiences with the game.
The game officially launched here in Australia today, to the cheers of many a gamer and non-gamer eager to get their hands on their own little piece of hype. IGN Australia gave a score of 9.2/10, which I think is excellent considering how original, broad and therefore risky Spore is as a game. It was never made a secret by Will Wright or EA that Spore is being aimed squarely at the same market which made The Sims into the commercial success that it is: casual gamers, which IGN and 99% of other game sites do not represent. While hopeful, I never expected the mainstream game sites to give Spore a perfect score
[ Click here to read more ]
I has in my hands a copy of Spore: Galactic Edition. 
According to the EB rep I spoke to this morning, the game has already sold out of several stores here in Sydney. Pretty good considering the official release date for Australia is still set down for tomorrow
[ Click here to read more ]
With the last four months of the year approaching, that means Christmas will once again need to shower, shave, have a few painkillers and shake off last years hangover to bring about a new wave of unacceptable presents and awkward family moments.
More positively, this also means that game companies will be hawking their latest and greatest wares. Just a quick glance at the latest release dates for the next few months shows a lot of promise on the PC gaming horizon:
[ Click here to read more ]
When I was growing up back in 1996, my Dad bought two games for our brand new PC. This powerful beast, just for anyone curious, had the following specs:
- Pentium 122Mhz processor
[ Click here to read more ]
Hopefully a lot of you are familiar with the Penny Arcade comic strip series, dating back into the depths of the 20th century. If not, then you're definitely missing out on one of the funnier, if not also scathing, comic strips available to the people of the Internet.
Personally, I didn't get into Penny Arcade until recently. Believe me, when you make the decision to go the very first comic in the series and read forward to the present day, you almost cry when you realise how old all the games/cultural references are. Better late than never though
[ Click here to read more ]
Only four days to go until the release of Spore! Needless to say that the stockpile of towels and urine bottles are being prepared for Thursday's release date. All I can say is this: if EB do not have my pre-order copy ready... 
In case you live under a gaming rock or have been playing World of Warcraft for the last few years (basically the same thing), Spore is the latest game from two legendary members of the gaming industry: Maxis, and its co-founder Will Wright
[ Click here to read more ]
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Comments (1)
Comment by Joey Crews
on R18-plus category won't stop bans: Aussie Government
Yeah, cause they're really good at that as it is..
Why bother patronizing us, just say "It's not gonna happen. We're gonna do what we want."