PC PC GAMES

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:35:33 — 27.3MB)

There was quite a bit of news this week, mainly coming out of GamesCon in Germany. We bucked the trend and hardly talked anything GamesCon. We rather focused on what we played and took a closer look at STEAM’s top 10 for the week. Here is the list:

• The Witcher 2
• Call of Duty talk
• Steam top 10
• Deluxe Editions… how much are they worth?
• Some Mail
• Funny Game Questions
• Left 4 Dead (2) DLC
• Bioshock 3 and no Multiplayer is an asset
• Josh got some new Hardware
• Some more SSD talk
• HP Envy follow up talk
• Some mobile phone talk
• Some people need to learn how to control their life
• Farcry 3… do we expect much?
• APB… buy it now… no, not a subscription… the WHOLE MMO!
• UBI… DRM or not DRM?
• City’s in motion
• Shout-outs

There is a great Mafia II review over at Kotaku and boy am I glad I didn’t buy the game. If you have listen to our last couple podcasts you know that the demo impressed me and that the open world was created beautifully, at least what one saw in the DEMO.

Turns out that the world is beautiful and that you can do even mundane tasks such as flush the toilet or turn lights on and off. What the devs seem to have forgotten to let you play in the open world. Which is too bad, I wanted to like the game, but from the sound of it it will need quite a price drop and a lot of DLC.

He says a lot about his experience with the game, but this right here is the straw… well that makes this a no buy before it hits the bargain bins:

Mafia II is eminently beatable in a single sitting, and its achievements and trophies can be plundered in the span of a rental. With no multiplayer – not saying there should be any for this type of game – I simply can’t see Mafia II as worth the full fare.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:39:13 — 28.4MB)

Few news this week had us as exited as Torchlight 2. We are great fans of anything MultiPlayer and it looks like the new year will start well with Torchlight 2. Heck, we got so exited that we got in the sharing mood and if you pay attention you can join SkippyDog and win a classic game or two! Our other talking points are:

• Our playlists
• World of Tanks
• Torchlight2
• A few words about Starcraft 2
• Borderlands Rumors
• Defense of the Ancients rumors
• Steam Top 10 and what we think of it.
• The old Republic Space Combat
• DC Universe
• Big Joe’s PC rig
• Solid State Drives fail too
• Reader Mail
• Win 2 Games
• A little Droid talk

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:45:04 — 30.1MB)

Staying within my delayed release schedule. This week I blame it all on Blizzard and you know why! We talked quite a bit about Blizzard this week. What does it mean for PC gaming, how big is Starcraft2 going to be and is Blizzard going to be contending with STEAM for the Digital distribution crown?
Also talked a bit hardware. After Nvidia made a bit of waves with the GTX460 what will ATI do to answer? And on the CPU side, is AMD going to challenge Intel with it’s next generation of CPUs? Competition, it’s a wonderful thing, so let’s hope so.

And this is what else we talked about:

• Alien Swarm
• Magic the Gathering
• Midnight opening for Starcraft 2
• CGI in Blizzard games
• What makes a real gamer
• BIOWARE and  DLC
• AMD CPU talk
• Mail call
• Monitor size and video card relation
• Digital distribution, what would it take to compete with STEAM
• Blizz-Con, now you too can be there

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:40:37 — 28.8MB)

This week on time and with lots of different topics. Some more in detail look at World of Tanks and some insight into APB from a players perspective. Also looking at some of the crazy headlines this week, all sorts of people calling each other by name…

• World of Tanks
• APB, a players perspective
• E3 a special look (The PC is back baby!)
• Bobby Kotick is a D***
• Mark Rein is a bully and got on Cliffes bad side
• Pachter is off his rocker. Yet again!
• Why Valve does it right, and TF2 is still in the top 10 selling games
• Alien Swarm, a Valve freebie
• StarCraft 2 Requirements
• UBI in the NEWS
• More GTX460 info
• Is ATI releasing a new Video Card this year? (6000 series)
• Intel is making major MONEY
• Kommie is looking forward to a game
• Tim Sweeney is apologizing for EPIC
• If you missed the Old Spice on YouTube…you missed a good one
• Don’t miss the opportunity to win a free game! 

Card Specs:

• Interface: PCI Express 2.0 x16
• Core Clock: 870MHz
• Stream Processors: 1600 Stream Processing Units
• RoPs: 32
• Memory Clock: 1250MHz (5.0Gbps)
• Memory Size: 1GB
• Memory Interface : 256-bit
• Memory Type : GDDR5
• Ports: 1 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort, 2 x DVI
• Max Resolution: 2560 x 1600
• CrossFireX Support: Yes
• Size: 270x100x33mm
• System Requirements: 500 Watt or greater power supply with 2x 75W 6-pin PCI Express power connector recommended (600 Watt and four 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX Technology in dual mode)

To me this card can only be described in one word, BEAST! As you may or may not know ATI released Dx11 Gpu’s around September of 2009 and released the 5870 and 5850. Today i am going to be talking about the 5870 Vapor-x, it was released shorty after the reference version. Now, I have a large library of PC games and since the day i got the card i tested them on every single game i own. I will go into detail of my performance in those games later on. But some of those games are the usual benchmarks games like Crysis, Far Cry 2, S.T.A.K.L.E.R Clear Sky, etc. I was able to run all these games at my native resolution of 1920×1200 (25” Wide-screen monitor) and at the highest settings possible. Now the shine of this card would be Direct X 11; which was new at the time of September 2009. Direct X 11 is only available on Windows 7, luckily i picked up a copy on launch date. Now from then on i bought games like S.T.A.K.L.E.R Call of Pripyat , Battle Field: Bad Company 2 which are newly Dx11 games. The 5870 handle those games so well that i was getting around 50-80 fps on both games on my native resolution and on highest possible settings and they looked phenomenal. Now as for temps they never reached above 65 C while gaming on both dx11 games.

When i ran this card on FurMark tho, it reached a temperature of 76 C on max load. I had the card’s fan on 50% and it was fairly quiet. It started to get loud around 70% even though i have around 8 fans in my case. Another part where this card really shines is EyeInfinity. Even though i was not able to run this card in that mode due to the fact i do not have more than one monitor i herd it performs well in games. You may look up reviews online to see their results. But i am just going to let another member of the pcpcgames website show you Eyefinity via his video:

Tim’s Eyefinity video

Overall this card was worth it ! I bought this card about a week after it was released and picked it up on Newegg for about $450. And as for price/performance ratio, its a steal! The drivers are also great, ATI is releasing new ones about every month and include performance in games up 10%. And now for my performance in games. I have a lot more but i’m just posting games that have been known to categorized as “Benchmark Games”

Performance in games

Battle Field: Bad Company 2
1920×1200 , Everything high — Max: 87 — Min: 55 — Avg: 72

BioShock 1
1920×1200 — Everything Possible on High — Dx10 Surfaces — Max: 132 — Min: 86 — Avg: 99

BioShock 2
1920×1200 — Everything Possible on High — Dx10 Surfaces — Max: 120 — Min: 77 — Avg: 90

Borderlands
1920×1200 — Everything Possible on High — Max: 62 ( Game doesnt allow higher) Min: 47 — Avg: 55

Crysis
1920×1200 — Everything on Very High — Max: 54 — Min: 34 — Avg: 45

Crysis: Warhead
1920×1200 — Everything on Enthusiast — Max: 58 — Min: 37 — Avg: 49

DiRT 2
1920×1200 — Everything on Very High — Max: 64 — Min: 46 — Avg: 56

Far Cry 2
1920×1200 — Everything on Very High — Max: 69 — Min: 34 — Avg: 47

Resident Evil 5
1920×1200 — Everything on Very High — Max 62 — Min: 45 — Avg: 53

S.T.A.K.L.E.R Call of Pripyat
1920×1200 — Everything on Very High — Max: 67 — Min: 38 — Avg: 51

Test System Specs:

• Case/Model: Cooler Master CM690
• CPU: AMD Phenom 9550 ~ 2.2 GHZ
• MB: Asus Violet
• RAM: 8 Gb
• Video Card: 5870 Vapor-X
• Sound Card: USB sound card 5hv2 headset
• Hard Drives: 1 Tb Segate
• Optical Drive: Samsung Blu Ray
• Monitor: 25” Hp (w2558hc)
• Keyboard: $10 Hp from wallmart
• Mouse: Razor Deathadder
• OS: Windows 7 Ultimate

This review is by our community member SkippyDogg.
PCPCGAMES – By Gamers, for Gamers!

The Passing is the first piece of downloadable content for last years Left 4 Dead 2, and while it isn’t groundbreaking, it’s a welcome addition to an already stellar game.  The Passing consists of a new campaign, a new primary and secondary weapon, a new special infected, and the introduction of Munitions modes.  The longevity that this downloadable content adds to the game will be based on how dedicated fans of the series are to its multiplayer.

The campaign is somewhat of a letdown, as it’s only three acts long and doesn’t have a lot of variety from the previous campaigns.  While the weather effects and lighting add to the intensity of the acts, they’re there to mask the familiar feeling of each environment which consists of apartment buildings, narrow city streets, and sewers.  The campaigns finale is similar to that of Dead Center’s campaign though with a new map.  It would have been nice to see a new gameplay mode for the finale and then have that mode implemented into multiplayer.  While the campaign itself is somewhat mundane you should push through it, to play around with the new primary weapon, the lead spitting M60 and the slicing golf club.  The weapons are a welcome addition, as the M60 is a force to be reckoned with, dealing out one shot kills, however not being able to reload the weapon keeps the gameplay balanced.  Essentially the golf club is a new “skin” of other melee weapons already available, adding to the available arsenal.

Players can use these welcome additions to test the new special infected, “The Fallen Survivor” who resembles just that.  This infected will run away when spotted, but if you catch up to and kill him, his corpse will drop health kits, molotovs or pipe bombs adding a bit of incentive to take a more offensive approach.  This special infected doesn’t drastically change the gameplay due to its lack of special abilities, but it helps to make equipment drops (especially on expert) more frequent.  Also available are munitions dumps scattered around the acts, each holding unlimited amounts of pills, syringes, molotov’s, etc.

Fans of the previous Left 4 Dead were shocked and overjoyed to learn that The Passing would feature the original four survivors though it was unknown in what capacity.  Unfortunately the original survivors play minimal role (as in you don’t physically interact with them) and it feels like a missed opportunity to really put those characters to good use.

Weekly updated multiplayer modes known as Munitions are what really stand out from this downloadable content.  The first addition was Realism Versus Mode, in which the survivors have no HUD and can’t track allies and items via color borders.  This adds a more challenging way to play thus prolonging the multiplayer mode.

The Passing is a free update for pc owners, though xbox 360 owners have to shell out $7.50 and while the additions of Munitions mode will prolong the already engaging multiplayer, the new weapons and campaign feel cosmetic and don’t fundamentally change the gameplay.

This weeks mutation? “Last Gnome On Earth”
Do you crave attention? Want all the infected to swarm you and the gnome you are carrying? Then we have the game mode for you. The team needs to carry the garden gnome from start to finish in any campaign. The common infected hate the gnome and will swarm whoever is carrying him. Watch out putting him on the ground, a boomer explosion will send him flying!

The famed Gold Box Edition

Back in the days when text adventure and Basic ASCII designed games ruled the PC domain, it was a real treat when you could play a game utilizing 4-bit CGA graphics. Oh the joys of screens made up of 4 colors from a palette of 16 colors – usually being black, cyan, magenta and white. And if blinking graphics appeared, well all the better.

Then the dark ages gave way to the renaissance of EGA graphics. Long gone were the days of 4 bland colors at once. Now 16 colors out of a palette of 64 colors could be displayed at one time. Personal computers were finally cooking with gas. With the EGA GPU, better graphics could be displayed with more colorful sprites and simple animation.

Along with the new EGA technology, a whole breed of platform, strategy and rpg games were developed. One of these developers would become well known for their unique games. The name was Strategic Simulations, Inc. – or SSI for short.

You might remember SSI for their games such as the Panzer General series. The company developed games for most systems including the Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari ST and Tandy TRS-80. In 1987, SSI acquired the license from TSR for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and created 30 games over time. The very first of these rpgs was AD&D Forgotten Realms Pool of Radiance.

Pool of Radiance would go on to set a standard for future role-playing games in it’s time. Other games like the Ultima series and the Wizardry series owe credit in some ways to the format that SSI used.

Pool of Radiance was created for the Commodore 64/128, Atari ST and the IBM PC. There was even a lackluster version for the NES. The version I am going to cover is the MS-DOS version as that is the only version that I ever owned.

Even characters from Star Wars can play AD&D!

The game play is basic. You create a party of adventurers. You can choose your characters race and class. When the computer calculates the points for your abilities, you can either accept or modify the numbers. You can even create “super” characters if you want all the characters abilities as high as they can be. But this just creates a party that can obliterate monsters with one or two hits. It may be fun after a first couple of go-a-rounds, but you will soon tire of the lack of real strategy during combat. You can also customize the character icon sprites. Characters can be carried over from one game to another game title in the same series.

The game is your standard simulated 3D views along with a map view. You go around the city of Phlan and acquire proclamations from city hall to gain experience points and treasures. The missions send you into the slum sections of Phlan that are inhabited by monsters and need clearing in order for the city of Phlan to expand. You will also reference journal entries and tavern tales as the game gives you hints.

Check out Darth Vader with his lightsabre

Combat consists of a combination of commands, casting spells and moving your characters strategically while attacking. Nothing special in the way it operates.

Since this an early DOS game, there is no use of a mouse. Everything is based on choosing the first letter of the command you wish to use. It makes it rather tedious, but later versions of SSI AD&D games incorporate the use of a mouse or joystick.

Is that a Gamorrean guard?

My personal suggestions when playing these old rpg games are to keep character sheets written out on paper in order to have a quick glance of your characters just like in real pen and paper role playing games. I also recommend using graph paper to map where you have been. That way you can mark doors, traps, places of interest, etc. without guessing or trying to remember where you’ve been.

So here is how I rate this game:

Graphics: 3  Nothing fancy, but then it is an old-school game.

Audio: 1 Probably not a fair assessment as it uses simple PC speaker beeps and boops. Again old-school.

Control: 3 Being all DOS based, old keyboard controls run the mechanics here.

Fun Factor: 5 This game may be dated, but it’s still a hoot to play.

As archaic as these games are, they are still fun after 20 some-odd years. If you have access to these old SSI games and are still holding on to an old 386/486 computer, you should take a trip back and give it a go. Otherwise, you can use the DOSBOX emulator in order to play MS-DOS games within Windows. You can also search abandonware sights, but you do so at your own risk. I will not provide links to any such sites here. Anyways, I highly recommend you give any of the SSI AD&D games a try. Or any SSI game for that matter.

GAME OVER

Let me just start by saying that I am a pretty big comic book fan. What with having a couple thousand comic books in my possession, I have a pretty good handhold on these things. Spider-Man and Batman have always been my favorite superheroes since the early 70′s when I started collecting as a kid. And before I begin to sound biased because I have a distaste of anything labeled Marvel “Ultimate-insert-crap-here”, I really did try to like this game. But for me it just felt like a giant kick to the groin. In fact it’s more like two kicks to the groin between Activision publishing this game and Marvel Comics allowing Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada to take the reigns and let his “creative” staff take 70 years of history, throw it in the shredder and rewrite it. After all, isn’t that why Marvel published the “What-If….” series years ago?

But between my disdain for all things “Ultimate” in the Marvel line-up and being biased of most superhero games, nothing could prepare me for this suck-fest.

The story takes place with the Ultimate Spider-Man story arc, the black goo symbiote that would become Peter Parker’s new spidey suit until Peter rejects it and the symbiote then merges with Eddie Brock to seek revenge on Peter. And this is where the story gets too confusing and convoluted. First, Mary Jane has to sew your butthole shut (yes, I said butthole). You then race Johnny Storm testing your spider swinging abilities for no reason at all. Then you will witness Wolverine get bested by Venom for no reason at all. Then as Spidey, you take on the Rhino for no reason at all. Then Silver Sable shows up. Then Nick Fury and SHIELD show up. Then Beetle frees the Green Goblin and steals a sample of the Sandman. Then….Jesus Christ, the confusion just never ends!!!

You need a good 'ol Spidey spanking you naughty girl!

This suck-fest really kicks in overtime when it comes to control and playability. Now a lot of you know that I have a thing about using keyboards for gaming since I’m a huge retrogaming screwbag and like using gamepads. And in games like this one, the gamepad really is the way to go. But controlling Spidey is a full-time job in and of itself. The controls never respond in any manner that you direct it. First he swings, then he slams into a wall and just falls. You’d think that jumping would be able to incorporate webslinging and wallcrawling. But no, the silly trolls at Treyarch decided that was just too much for Spidey to handle. It goes hand-in-hand with walking and chewing gum I suppose. But Spidey is a superhero. Superheroes CAN walk, run, beat up the bad guys and unwrap chewing gum with their toes all at the same time. Apparently asking for that was just too much of an effort for Treyarch. Spidey had better controlling action in previous games.

There is one minor good point that I can give this gold-plated turd. Treyarch used cel shading, which I can say really added to the effect of a living comic book. The presentation was spot on for recreating that comic book feel. It’s just too bad that artifacts appear on almost every cinematic screen. I have tried this game on three different computers with three different VGA cards and the artifacts appeared the same on each one. Minus the artifacts, the graphics were pretty good and stayed consistent with the Ultimate Spider-Man series artwork.

As you can tell, I hate this game. It ranks up there with having a doctor stick his greasy finger up your backside. No, it’s worse than that. It’s like having your grandmother slip her tongue in your mouth and drop her dentures down your throat. I’m just hoping that someone has played this game on the Gamecube or PS2 and can say something better than what I just did.

And the polished turd award goes to.....

So let’s wrap this crap-cube up:

Graphics: 4.5 Minus the artifacts that appear in some scenes, the graphics are pretty good. Fans of Marvel’s Ultimate universe will appreciate the artwork.

Audio: 4 The voice acting is pretty good and surprisingly better than most of the Spider-Man games in the past.

Control: 1 Just bite me. You read the review.

Fun Factor: 2 I can’t say it wasn’t cool to swing around, but I can’t say that this game is worth the $10.00 I paid for it at a local discount store either. A person can find better things to do like chew on their toenails in front of the TV. Wait, I think I hear the suck police coming. WEEEEEE-EWWWWWW!

Now please excuse me as I go pour bleach in my eyes to get rid of the image burned into my retinas and shoot scrubbing bubbles in my mouth from swearing while Spider-Wad confusingly met his doom every 5 minutes.

GAME OVER – Thank God!

P.S. – And did I mention you can play as Venom in this game too? What? You don’t care? Me neither!

Thanks to all the people who just read this and feel like they just lost 5 minutes of their lives that will never come back. It’s not like all those saved minutes on your cell phone. They’re gone buddy!

On March 19, BlackThunder talked about a cheap gaming rig from NewEgg for around $300. Well my friends, I had purchased that same exact rig that very day. And let me tell you, it’s nothing to sling boogers at. This machine is fast, runs cool and with the proper video card, it will run some pretty high details in your games.

The default system comes as an AMD Athlon II X2 245 Processor at 2.90GHz. The mainboard is an ASUS M4A785-M that is fully expandable from a Sempron to a Phenom II CPU. The chipset is the 785G accompanied by the ATI Radeon 4200 GPU. It comes with a Cooler Master case with a 460 watt power supply. The 4GB of 6400C5C Corsair RAM (mainboard will take up to 16GB) allows plenty of snuff to run Windows 7 64-bit and games sufficiently. The Rosewill CPU cooler seems very efficient and isn’t even hot to the touch. Top this bad-boy off with a 750GB HDD and a DVD-RW and you got yerself one a’ them-there nifty doo-hickeys they’s call a com-poo-ter! I seen one of those city slickers using one once.

All joking aside, this system is great. It was easy to assemble and only took about 30 minutes.

Once I got it up and running, I immediately ran 3D Mark 6 and Ungine on the system to stress the GPU/CPU. Boy, does the onboard Radeon 4200 suck squirrel nuts! If you think for a second that the onboard video is tip-top, then prepare to run for the hills. Run somewhere, because you take this sucker to any LAN parties and you’re gonna get laughed right out of somebody’s mother’s basement. The onboard vid will never do. I originally purchased a Radeon 4650 from Best Buy because I thought the power supply was only 400 watts. I later realized that it is a 460 watt (DUH!). So another trip back to Best Buy was in order to return the 4650 in exchange for the better HD 5770. I told Best Buy the card “sucked squirrel nuts” as I mentioned above and I wanted a better card. I could have just told them it didn’t work, but I needed the challenge to see how they would handle this return. The service manager laughed and almost had his Pepsi come out his nose when I said “squirrel nuts”. That was my highlight of the evening.

So the 5770 is in the rig, I’m pumping out 30 to 58 FPS on my benchmarks from DX9, 10 and 11. I could only get 30 fps tops with the 4650. The 4200 was lucky to get 12 or less fps. The 3D Mark tests on the CPU were pretty tough on it, but I take those tests with a grain of salt. I’ve never seen any CPU test well on 3D Mark CPU testing. My overall 3D Mark rating at high detail for DX11 was 9010 and was comparable to a lot of other gaming rigs when I submitted my results online. I was getting 7924 with the Radeon 4650. So there is a big difference in video cards.

If you want to ask me what I overclocked my hardware to, go ahead. I’ll tell you there is no way this chicken little is doing any such thing. I’m pretty happy with the existing set-up and don’t feel the need to be all Tim Allen and supe it up using Binford tools for more power. The only thing I ever felt comfortable overclocking was a Nvidia 8400GS card because it sucked so bad. Believe me when I say that it didn’t help any. This is my first ATI card I have ever bought and I am now convinced that Nvidia’s engineers drink the same toilet water they urinate in. You know that saying – “Never eat where you sh–!” I have had enough of Nvidia. I am now playing for the red team. Staying off the green like a Tiger Woods.

So all in all, this system was a great deal. $309.00 for the complete DIY system and another $160.00 for the video card. Now I can finally start kicking some ass on Crysis or Gears of War. Come and get me you bastards!!

GAME OVER, MAN! GAME OVER!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:59:16 — 27.3MB)

This podcast is all in the spirit of gaming as a community. We talk quite a bit about the Lan Party of last weekend. But there is quite a few other PC gaming related topics we touch on, such as:

• Lan Party Details
• I wanna be the Guy
• Battlefield Bad Company 2 Gaming
• People that where at the Lan
• Kommie and Brownies
• Just Cause 2
• The Lan Playlist
• Quad Crossfire… pros and cons
• Borderlands on Eyefinity
• Ruse
• Fermi, Nvidia and GTX480
• Metro 2033
• Great March Game Specials
• Even EA employees don’t like C&C4′s online requirements
• And more DRM woes
• Newegg Special Hardware Review
• Listener Mail
• Old school gaming (Dreamcast, Commodore64 and Amiga FTW)
• Global Agenda
• Starcraft 2 (HD)

4A-Games has arrived. After all of the controversy over the game engine with former employees of GSC Game World, Metro 2033 has finally seen the light of day. Being a fan of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games I was very excited to hear that some of the former team members from that franchise were working on a new game. It was also nice to hear that it would also employ a post-apocalyptic setting based off of a Dmitry Glukhovsky novel by the same name.

My intent was to publish this review earlier but I have been immersed in the claustrophobic tunnels that reside below the surface of Moscow. It is a world where nuclear war was a reality and the passengers of the metro system were the ‘lucky’ survivors. The game places you in the role of Artyom, a silent protagonist ah-la Gordon Freeman. You reside in a world where the surface is deadly, the only currency is pre-war bullets, and mankind is still trying to kill itself. There are a few factions that are warring with each other. The communists, the Nazis, and what seems like everyone else. If that wasn’t harsh enough, there are strange creatures that lurk within the old Moscow subway system, just waiting for some unlucky soul to cross their path. Since the game is heavily driven by its story I will try not to touch on it. It is something best experienced without any foreknowledge.

My first reaction to the game was how amazing it looked. I’m running a rather fit system and was able to crank most settings to their highest limit. I was blown away by the quality. Beautiful texture work, particle effects, environmental and lighting effects. I found it hard to play through the game on my first play-through because I wanted to take in every scene and really take my time. The problem there was the fact that the story tries to push you forward a little too quickly. I also noticed I spent a lot of time looking at the ground searching for pre-war bullets, though I didn’t end up spending many of them through the first run.

One aspect I really enjoyed was the very organic feel to the game. The standard HUD is very limited to a view of weapons that is only seen when you scroll through them and a graphical depiction of your ammunition count when needed. Other than that it is completely nonexistent. The health-bar is replaced by a screen distorting red blur and rapid increase in heart rate. When wearing the gas mask you have a wrist watch you can refer to for filter change notifications. Alternatively, you can rely on the labored sound of your breathing and the excessive fogging that occurs on your mask as well. Another thing I learned quickly was the fact that the gas mask can break if you are wounded too often while wearing it, requiring you to loot one in better condition off of a corpse. Medkits are replaced by scarce adrenaline shots which rapidly increase your heart rate and cause the screens brightness to actually fluctuate for a moment. It is a welcomed addition to an already innovative system. Your head lamp and night-vision goggles are both set on limited battery life and require you to pull out a device to replenish the charge. It’s an interesting interaction that requires some preparation so you are not left in the dark at the wrong time.

The environments are another big plus. The game is set in a rendered model of the Moscow Metro system. At times you can also venture to the surface, which is a frozen wasteland riddled with creatures. There are a few elements in the game that pay homage to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series such as the anomalies that are in the subway tunnels, or the fact that you find frozen stalkers on the surface at one point. The dark is another aspect that you can use to your advantage. Blowing out lamps, shooting out lights, and equipping a stealth suit can allow you to play a silent assassin, stalking the shadows and dropping foes with knives, allowing you to conserve ammunition.

The game is not without its flaws though. There are times when outside that I felt as though I should have been able to go places but was not able to due to invisible walls. The entire game heavily limits where you can go, but that is to be expected. Also, some of the weapons are not as effective as they should be. I should not have to spend six shotgun shells on a soldier that is standing in front of me. Balancing like that can be extremely frustrating.

Still, aside from little things like that, this game is quite an accomplishment. This is the kind of storytelling that Modern Warfare 2 could not accomplish; a compelling environment that truly instills a sense of desperation and panic into the player. One thing to remember though, play this game at night. Make sure to have the sound up as loud as your living situation allows, and try to lose yourself in the experience. Perhaps it will eat up as many hours in your life as it has in mine.

The wind wisps by as distressed dogs moan from out of the darkness. It’s midnight and I cannot see more than a few feet in front of me. My flashlight sways back and forth as I run, paranoia setting in. I can hear guttural growls but can’t see a thing. A voice comes out of my radio notifying me, with a thick Russian accent, that an emission is coming. I need to find cover desperately. I open my PDA, which has a vague topographical map, to try and find the nearest refuge. I spot what looks like arusted barge and make for an oddly placed wooden door in the side of it. As I reach for the knob I hear a shotgun blast and the door flies open. A man screams out at me from inside. Even though I’ve visited with him before he has no idea who I am. His mutated pet dog growls at me as I shut the door. Though he seems hostile he is actually quite harmless. I pace inside for about five minutes as the screen throbs red. The point of view camera sways as though I drank too much vodka and the sound of the emission is immense. After a few moments the kindly voice comes through my radio to notify me that the emission has passes. I have survived yet another one.

Ukrainian developer GSC World Publishing brings us their third installment of the Stalker franchise and it is quite an accomplishment. This installment picks up shortly after the events of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. You assume the role of Alexander Degtyarev, a military agent who is tasked with the investigation of a failed attempt to penetrate the center of the ‘zone’. Unlike the previous games, CoP had a very smooth launch, avoiding a lot of the bugs that hindered the previous two releases. The only thing I noticed was the occasional frame-rate drop when objects were being loaded in certain areas. After playing a while I didn’t notice it anymore. The tone of the game is truly eastern European. It’s a bleak, desperate existence where the world’s inhabitants are struggling to survive in a world where wealth is not easily attained and your diet consists of sausage, canned meat, bread, and vodka.

Like any Stalker game I started out confused and overwhelmed. I was not sure where to go or what to do exactly. After a short while I began to figure things out and was noticing nice changes from the previous games. The story this time around is much more coherent than the original. The missions are similar to the other Stalkers but they seem to guide you along better. The original game would give me missions and no map marker for them, or the marker would be wrong. That caused many frustrating hours. I played through the majority of the new missions without any problems at all. It was quite a relief.

The inventory system has been overhauled. It is a much cleaner interface and your weapons and armor are upgradeable. Also there are onscreen notifications if your weapons or armor start to wear down. Unlike the first two games you are able to repair items in CoP. The health system functions the same way, with bleeding and ruptures. You can also find and use many artifacts that give you certain bonuses as well as a nice dose of radiation. Though the artifacts were not nearly as prevalent as they were in the first two games.

A lot of the same enemies make their way back into this sequel but are deadlier. The most memorable occurrence was my first bloodsucker encounter. It actually grabbed a hold of me and began to drain my blood. A truly frightening experience when it is pitch dark and the creature moves around invisible.

The Stalker series is definitely not for every one. It is dark, gritty, and can sometimes be anxiety inducing. Yet I would still recommend it to anyone interested in shooters with some rpg elements. Once you get over the sleight learning curve it is truly a satisfying experience.

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You know the worst sort of love? The disappointed and rejected kind is the worst love.

I am an RTS fan-boy. I love planning my strategy, amass my armies and crush the opposition with my forces. That was what was great about Supreme Commander. The huge Armies, the different ways you could approach things. What in the world was Chris Taylor thinking with this “sequel”?

So we talked about this in the last podcast. If you want to know my feelings just listen to episode 11. This game is at best a bad console port and at worst just a bad product. One would think you could expect more from a sequel, but as the Matrix trilogy or the Transformer movie has taught us episode 2 or 3 are not guranted a better thing. (Congratulations to Transformers 2 for winning worst picture of 2009!) And I think the votes are in Supreme Commander 2, seems already a shoe in for winner as worst RTS game of 2010.