Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

The Ascaron presentation at the 2008 Leipzig Games Convention began with a confirmation that the action role-playing game Sacred 2: Fallen Angel is finished and should soon be shipping for the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Following this piece of good news we jumped straight into an overview of the PC version, where we were shown some of the different regions in the game. There will be around 22 square miles in total to explore, including woodlands, forest, swamps, human settlements, a volcanic island, jungle, and desert. There are also a reported 200-plus subterranean dungeons in the game, with no loading screens between areas aboveground or belowground. Sacred 2's entire world is unlocked from the beginning, with the exception of areas where you might be killed if you're lacking in skills, so you should be able to jump straight in and explore at your leisure from the get-go.

In addition to some of the terrain, we saw some examples of region-specific animals, including some nasty-looking giant spiders that were indigenous to a rain-drenched jungle area. Expect to see panthers, jaguars, and other creatures lurking in the jungle. We were told that there will be 80 basic enemy types throughout the game, as well as variations for some of them. Each region will also have a special boss that will need to be defeated using a specific technique. When you vanquish those enemies you will be rewarded with extra items, such as heavy armour.

While you can traverse the large open world on foot, you'll also be able to do it on horseback. You'll gain access to special mounts for each character during the game. You'll be able to trample enemies and jump over obstacles on horseback, though you'll be limited to simple melee attacks. Special mounts, on the other hand, allow you to pull off special combos similar to those that you're able to perform on foot. The mounts can also join in the fight themselves, increasing your overall attack.

You'll be able to play through a full adventure single-handedly, but fighting alongside a friend might make things easier. Sacred 2's persistent online feature means that cooperative team members can drop in and out at will. We were told that the two storylines (one for good characters and one for bad) should take between 35 and 45 hours each to complete. With an apparent 600-odd side quests, the total time to find every last item and achievement in the game could take more than 100 hours.

We were also shown Sacred 2 for the Xbox 360, which, we were told, is almost the same as the PC version. Both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions will support a native resolution of 1080p full HD, which should keep HDTV owners happy. The development team has gotten around the limitations of controllers: Major functions such as attacks have been mapped to the face buttons, healing potions have been mapped to the directional pad, and shifting to a different set of functions can be done with the triggers. An analogue stick will move your character like the point-and-click method does on the PC.

Playing locally or online with friends will earn your character experience, but it won't affect your progress in the game. If you're hosting a cooperative session, you'll be able to continue your journey after your friends have quit. On the flip side, your friends will be able to continue their single-player game from where they left off before joining you on a quest. While no details were given on PlayStation Network support, up to four players will be able to play simultaneously over Xbox Live.

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel is coming out later this year on the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. With a massive open world and a plethora of characters, missions, side quests, and regions to choose from, it looks like the experience will keep RPG fans occupied for many hours.

11:02 AM
Categories: Playstation EMU + 15 Games TOP COLLECTION, Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, strategy. Author: adbhoot balok

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
Logging into The Wrath of the Lich King feels just like logging into normal World of Warcraft. Things don't start to get a little bit different until you travel to a major city for, what else? A shave and a haircut. When you see the red and white barber's pole, you'll think "Why not? I've had this mullet for 70 levels. It's time for a change!" So you'll sit down in the barber's chair to flip through hairstyles, hair colors, and facial-hair dos just like you would in the character-creation screen; except that this time, your new look will cost at least a dozen gold. Now, before we go any further, we must warn you that this preview may contain spoilers on the expansion's new content. Also, please note that our impressions are based on an unfinished beta version of the game, so all information here, haircut-related and otherwise, is subject to change. Once you settle on a new look (Good-bye, comb-over; hello, red Mohawk!), you'll be ready to introduce your new self to the new zones. You're free to travel to either the Borean Tundra or the Howling Fjord, but you should definitely check out the Howling Fjord first. The quests here tend to run a level lower than they do in the Borean Tundra. They're also more concentrated around their respective horde and alliance strongholds. Once you've gained three to four levels in the Howling Fjord, you'll easily breeze through everything in the Borean Tundra for another quick and easy level or two. That's the beauty of having two starting zones; you'll always be ahead of the level curve if you complete them both. The Howling Fjord is a zone dominated by the Vrykul--huge Viking men with terrible manners. Though there are many factions, none of them are friendly. As you make your way through the Howling Fjord quest lines, so too will you make your way through each Vrykul village. In many cases, you'll simply kill a set number of them, but in others, you'll burn their towers, blast their structures, and kill their dogs. Some of the best quests, though, involve a pirate stronghold known as Scalawag Point. The first two characters you meet are a Blood Elf-worshiping artifact collector and a beefy Tauren bookie. The quests of these two characters intersect because the collector owes the beefy bookie money; so don't be surprised if, when turning in a quest to the collector, another player comes in and kicks his butt.You'll also meet the pirates' second in command, who won't let you get a word in edgewise before she assumes you're there to kill her boss; then she tells you how. You'll track him to a cave, where you'll face him and his giant bear pet. Both are tough as nails, so make sure to bring friends. Other quests in the Howling Fjord have you freezing contaminated spores, as well as shattering them, hunting critters with your brand new falcon pet, and running around in the body of a reactivated rune golem. This, in turn, will get you ready for the siege weapon warfare in Lake Wintergrasp and Strand of the Ancients.Lake Wintergrasp is not a battleground or an arena. Rather, it's an entire world zone dedicated to player-versus-player combat; the first in World of Warcraft. The basic idea is that one faction will defend a keep and the other will assault it. Each battle will last a set amount of time, with both honor points and arena points on the line. Also, as you gain honorable kills, you'll gain ranks and access to siege weapons. At the first rank, you will only be able to make a simple catapult, but assuming you are able to kill enough of the enemy, you'll gain access to siege engines and flying machines. While the siege weapons will be balanced like rock-paper-scissors, it is less clear how Blizzard intends to balance the zone itself. Because this is an open-world PVP zone, it is likely that in any given battle, one faction will be able to field more troops than another. Blizzard is considering ways to equalize this, such as bestowing bonuses on a faction that has lost several battles in a row or on one that is fielding far fewer combatants. When we know more about the subject, you will, too. But while the new battleground and the new world PVP zone will go through changes in the future, the Borean Tundra already seems ready for retail. This is another starting zone on the other side of Northrend from the Howling Fjord. This area is beset by both green giants (decidedly not jolly) and the scourge. You'll fight cultists, purge the undead, and beat back the mean greenies as they emerge from their warships. The best confrontation in the Borean Tundra, though, is between Nesingwary's Expedition and a group of animal rights activist druids. Nesingwary, as always, wants you to kill animals to bring back pelts, tusks, and claws. However, as soon as you kill a critter in the Borean Tundra, you become marked for death by the druids for a few minutes. Assuming you haven't recently killed anything furry or feathery, you can approach the druids for quests that involve saving trapped animals and attacking hunters. You can easily choose a side or play one against the other for even more gold and experience.Regardless of the starting zone you choose, you'll quickly come in contact with members of the opposite faction, and if you're on a PVP server, that means a fight. When the beta began, certain classes were unbelievably powerful; it seemed like paladins could kill you just by targeting you. Then, things shifted around a bit, and rogues were destroying everyone with instant poisons. Most recently, warlocks became PVP gods with a massive buff to a talent that had previously been comically lackluster. Things have been changing so much so rapidly that it is impossible to tell what the PVP landscape will look like when the game actually retails. Only two things are apparent: There is still a long way to go, and when we finally get there, we'll be able to blast each other on foot, in tanks, or from the air.Aside from all that, the actual business of leveling a character in Northrend should be very familiar. You'll talk to non-player characters in town, then head out into the wilderness to kill bad guys, wreck plague spewers, and hunt condors. If you've been leveling a character on one of the live servers and enjoying the accelerated pace of the experience gains, you should know that leveling in WotLK is currently very slow. Each level will take a great deal of time and effort; you won't simply zoom all the way to level 80. Then again, doing so would rob you of enjoying all the wonderful effort Blizzard put into the new areas it has crafted and the thousands of lines of clever dialogue it has written. You should stop and smell the peace bloom because every new zone in Northrend is full of amazing sights, such as a giant, overturned tree in the Grizzley Hills.Overlaying all of Blizzard's efforts in Northrend is a patina of new graphical quality. This new layer is one of detail and sophistication. You're still definitely looking at World of Warcraft, but the models and environments all look slightly more realistic than before. It is as though, before your eyes, WoW is evolving from a cartoon into an impressionist painting. Where the old graphical style used broad strokes with simple colors, WotLK features finer details on everything from trees to orcs. If you can imagine the original World of Warcraft being painted by a nice, fat brush, WotLK has been colored by one with a much finer tip. And then, floating above it all, is a beautiful rendition of aurora borealis. WotLK doesn't push any graphical envelopes, just stylistic ones.Of course, this preview hasn't taken into account the new trade skill, Inscription, or any of the new dungeons, but each of those assets warrants its own full preview. And even if we could reveal all the secrets of Northrend to you, we wouldn't want to do so. This article has exposed but the very tip of Northrend's iceberg, with an entire mountain of adventure, gear, and PVP content waiting underneath its surface. In the meantime, we'll keep chipping away at Blizzard's ever-growing massively multiplayer online role-playing game, and we'll let you know as soon as we unearth more.

11:02 AM
Categories: Playstation EMU + 15 Games TOP COLLECTION, strategy, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Author: adbhoot balok

11:28 AM
Categories: games, Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches. Author: adbhoot balok

Rise of the Argonauts

Rise of the Argonauts is certainly a fine-looking action-role-playing game, but it's hard not to immediately think of God of War the first time you see it. Despite the similarities, the games do differ in their approach to storytelling. While Kratos is a morose, one-man killing machine who slaughters everything that crosses his path, Jason is more of a people person, forming a mythological Justice League as he recruits other characters on his quest for the Golden Fleece.
Story
In Rise of the Argonauts, you play as Jason, the Greek king. Jason's wife, Alceme, is assassinated and Jason avenges her by killing the assassin. He sealed her body in the temple where they were supposed to marry. Jason learns that the golden fleece, a magical artifact known to carry the power of resurrection, is the only way to bring her back to life. He leaves his land under the rule of his uncle and sets out on the newly constructed Argo to bring back the golden fleece, and possibly, his bride. Jason recruits the Argonauts, including Hercules (or Heracles as he was called by the Greeks), Pan, Achilles, and Atalanta. The trailer shows various mythical creatures one of which is a giant boar. The Levels or islands in the game are all based on different Greek gods. For example, the island based on Artemis has a woodland type area based on hunting, while the island based on Apollo is an enormous desert and the island based on Ares is a volcanic island with a gladiator arena at its center.

11:22 AM
Categories: games, Rise of the Argonauts. Author: adbhoot balok

Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2 is coming! The release date is set for October, the 23th. Ubisoft has finally released a release date of the hot longed-for game Far Cry 2 (PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360)Far Cry 2 is coming! The release date is set for October, the 23th. Ubisoft has finally released a release date of the hot longed-for game Far Cry 2 (PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360)
Far Cry 2, the next-generation first-person shooter from Ubisoft, will take you deep into the most beautiful but also most hostile environments in the world: Africa! More than just a visual and technological achievement, Far Cry 2, the true sequel to the award-winning PC game, will provide you with an unprecedented gaming experience.

Caught between two rival factions in war-torn Africa, you are sent to take out "The Jackal", a mysterious character who has rekindled the conflict between the warlords, jeopardizing thousands of lives. In order to fulfil your mission you will have to play the factions against each other, identify and exploit their weaknesses, and neutralise their superior numbers and firepower with surprise, subversion, cunning and, of course, brute force.

11:11 AM
Categories: Far Cry 2, games. Author: adbhoot balok

11:11 AM
Categories: games, King's Bounty: The Legend. Author: adbhoot balok

Mount & Blade

Mount & Blade, the role playing game title that made so many people go crazy several years ago with its realistic horse-riding and fighting sequences, is finally going to be released, after completing the beta-stage (which also lasted several years). The game, developed by TaleWorlds Entertainment, will be published by Paradox Interactive on the 19th of September 2008 in Europe.

Story and background

Even though there is no official storyline implemented in Mount&Blade, the game's historical background is already well established.

Mount&Blade takes place in the land of Calradia, where war has broken out between five militarized factions: The Swadians, The Rhodoks, The Vaegirs, The Khergits, and The Nords.

According to the published history, the Kingdom of Swadia was Calradia's all-encompassing monarchy. Under circumstances not yet revealed, the nation was plunged into infighting and civil strife. Despite this, Swadia can still be considered the strongest faction at the beginning of a Mount & Blade play through; it is common for Swadia to be engaged in wars on two or more fronts at any point due to their expansive territory.

This original breakdown of Swadian supremacy allowed the Nords an opportunity to invade by sea and set up their own kingdom from carved-out swathes of unguarded Swadian territory. This is similar to the history of the British Isles, where pre-Norman England fell victim to Viking raids and, eventually, settlement.

The Kingdom of Vaegir and the Kingdom of Rhodok were parts of the Kingdom of Swadia which declared their independence a generation before the events of the game.

The Khergit Khanate was formed by invading steppe nomads who settled in Calradia and became urbanised.

The currency used in game is known as the Denar.

10:00 AM
Categories: games. Author: adbhoot balok

Civilization IV: Colonization

If there's one thing settlers learned as they colonized the New World, it's that you always need a little help from your friends. Be it in the form of corn-farming lessons from the natives or an extra shipment of supplies from the homeland, a helping hand could ensure survival through a harsh winter in a strange new land. With that in mind, Civilization IV: Colonization is a strategy game more focused on trade and forging new alliances than it is about wiping out natives and competing colonies with musket fire.

We learned this lesson playing a LAN multiplayer match of Colonization this week. In addition to traditional LAN play and online modes, there's a direct IP connection, a hot seat mode in which multiple players take their turns on the same computer, and a slower-paced play-by-e-mail mode for those who don't have four hours to spare for the quick game. Yes, that's four hours for a quick game.

We took control of Samuel de Champlain set off in hopes of establishing a fruitful French colony, and quickly began construction on Quebec in the Southern Hemisphere. The Cherokee and the Arawak tribes were both located in close proximity, but gifts of rum and tools kept them happy neighbors. Keeping the natives happy, you'll quickly learn, is of immense importance in Colonization. What their villages lack in technology is offset by the huge combat advantage braves have in the forests, swamps, and hills. Building too closely to their villages is the easiest way to start a costly war that, early on in the game as you don't have many guns, you will lose.

It wasn't long before we ran into a village belonging to the English—controlled by another player. The city was low on resources, and it was the hope of that player that founding near our border would stymie our nation’s growth. In a way, this worked, because as it turns out, you can place citizens in your city’s town hall to increase patriotism. This caused the small borders of the city to expand so that several production squares in our city, Montreal, were cut off.

At the same time in the far north, another of our opponents, playing as the Dutch, was growing his holdings at a tremendous pace. The Dutch begin the game with advantages in trade, such as the Merchantman ship class from the opening of the match, and the colonies' treasury was filling quickly by trading raw silver and fur coats. However, we did commission a privateer unit to start raiding these wealthy Dutch ships for their goods. Privateers sail without their nation's colors, so they can attack without declaring war. Utilizing privateers in multiplayer is a fun way to pester your opponents without entering a costly war.

By building up your resources early in the game, you can focus on weapons production later during the endgame. Early on it seems the best strategy is to offer open trade borders to your counterparts, even building an alliance when your king eventually sends its expeditionary force after you when you declare independence.

With France’s skilled lumberjacks and carpenters, we constructed new buildings at a rapid pace. With expert iron ore miners, blacksmiths, and gunsmiths, tools and weapons became widely available through our domain. In another of our nearby cities, we ordered pioneers to improve the land by building lodges, mines, farms, and roads--this increases the amount of resources produced, and also decreases the time it takes to transport goods overland via wagon train. The French faction seems to have the ability to build a powerful economy indeed--we were also able to commission expert silver miners to producing staggering amounts of the precious metal. We then shipped the silver back to our home nation of France to purchase elder statesman and master tobacconists. Elder statesmen in city hall increase production of liberty bells that increase rebel sentiment--necessary to declare independence from your home nation later in the game--as well as increase the size of territory belonging to your nation. When your nation possesses enough influence--especially when you commission such powerful helpers to your cause--your borders can eventually come to surround several Native American villages. In this case, the chiefs of the villages we surrounded offered the settlements as gifts to our cause and relocated to the west. Tobacconists, naturally, produce tasty cigars that can be sold in Europe for a tidy profit

Over time, we developed our colony and attracted powerful founding father characters like Patrick Henry and Martha Washington. However, we remained mindful of the number of turns we had remaining in the game, since the ultimate goal of the game is to build your fledgling settlements into a nation that’s powerful enough to fight off the advances of your home country and declare independence. In fact, this end game provides the most difficulty in Colonization. As rebel sentiment in our colonies grew, the king of our home nation of France added soldiers, artillery, and warships to his expeditionary forces. We found our own forces to be woefully inadequate in comparison, but rebel sentiment in our colonies had eclipsed 50 percent. Rebel sentiment increases over time as your home nation levies more and more usurious taxes from your overworked colonists. In our case, the tax rate soared to 25 percent and our elder statesmen finally clamored for revolution.

And so, we declared our independence in the game year of 1755 and formed a new nation. When you take this bold step in Colonization, you must draft a constitution that declares a decisive direction for your new nation. This includes whether or not your nation will allow for slavery, whether it will subscribe to the belief of Manifest Destiny (versus rights for the natives), and whether you wish to have separation of church and state (versus a theocracy). Each of these decisions offer a variety of bonuses. For instance, you’ll have more production if you adopt slavery, but you have increased combat strength if every man is created equal. After crafting the constitution, our citizens were ready for a new beginning without taxes and tyranny. They were ready for a new country. And in the game year of 1762, just seven turns later, they were squashed flat What separates Colonization from other strategy games is that it’s really two games in one. 90 percent of the game is spent cultivating resources, building cities, and increasing rebel sentiment. The final turns are devoted to smashing the king's ground troops in order to claim independence. If you don’t develop a strong enough economy with a proud enough nation of people, you’ll never muster up a strong enough army. And if you don’t have a strong enough army, the government of your parent country will crush you. As we saw, this can be a tougher task in a multiplayer game where you not only have to contend with your greedy home nation’s king and his outrageous taxes, but also with rival players looking to carve out the New World in their images. However, the game’s multiplayer mode can accommodate as many as eight players total, and two players can cooperatively control a single colony. In any case, from what we can tell, Colonization will offer an intriguing and engrossing multiplayer experience if you and your friends can spare the time. The game is scheduled to ship later this month

9:44 AM
Categories: Civilization IV: Colonization, games. Author: adbhoot balok

Velvet Assassine

Gamecock's upcoming Velvet Assassin, in development by Replay Studios, has an intriguing premise - the protagonist, Violette Summer, is based on the actual life of British secret agent Violette Szabo during World War II. In the game, Violette is a secret agent on her own behind enemy lines. It's slated for a Fall release on Xbox 360 and PC.

Violette's story is told through flashbacks and memories - in the opening of the game, she's in a hospital, remembering back on her career, and in the scene I saw, Violette was sneaking through the sewers and up into a Warsaw ghetto under patrol by Nazi soldiers. The PR rep told me that the team is prioritizing authenticity in creating the WWII environment, with the aim of recreating the grittiness of that war's horrors.

Release Date: Q3/2008
Platforms: PC Xbox360
Publisher: Gamecock Media Group
Developer: Replay Studios
Gamesite: Click here
Genres: Action, Shooter, Stealth
ESRB: M

9:38 AM
Categories: games, Velvet Assassine. Author: adbhoot balok

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

spider man! spider man !........

New York City has been invaded and only Spider-Man can save it. The fate of New York is in your hands...take control. Spider-Man: Web of Shadows gives you an unprecedented level of gameplay choice including, for the first time, control over the game's direction and outcome. Choose how Spider-Man fights, which powers to upgrade, who in the Marvel Universe to fight with or against, and the fate of New York City itself. Choose wisely.

Story

Venom has returned to New York to infect the city with an army of symbiotes. S.H.I.E.L.D. has quarantined Manhattan to prevent the invasion from spreading. As a result, the entire city is cut off from the outside world. Spider-Man has to work with both heroes and villains from the Marvel Comics universe to track down Venom and stop the invasion before he himself is consumed by the symbiote, attached to him once again.

9:27 AM
Categories: games, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. Author: adbhoot balok

Disciples III: Renaissance

Coming this Fall to a PC near you is Akella’s newest RPG/strategy title Disciples III: Renaissance. This is the third installment in the popular Disciples series and builds on the successes of the first two games by introducing a host of new features as well as the same style of gameplay that made the previous titles popular. This will be the first time in the series that the gloomy world of Disciples will be rendered in full 3D by using the Virtual Dream engine which will in turn allow players to experience this realm as it should be.

Disciples III: Renaissance is the sequel to Disciples II: Dark Prophecy; the award winning Heroic Fantasy Strategy/Role Playing game. The player takes on the role of the Lord of one of the fantastic races of Nevendaar in their enduring struggle to establish the reign of their respective god over the world. Ripe with surprises and turn-arounds, the story of the world of Nevendaar is played against a somber backdrop and shows a unique as well as stunning style that has players asking for more.

Disciples III: Renaissance uses .dat’s in-house Virtual Dream engine.

9:21 AM
Categories: Disciples III: Renaissance, games. Author: adbhoot balok

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky

9:08 AM
Categories: games, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. Author: adbhoot balok