The Game Of The Decade Is Here!

The original Witcher was a great game, whereas the sequel was even better, bigger and more beautiful in every aspect. Following on this trend of building upon and improving their achievements, CD PROJEKT RED, the small Polish developer that has humbled gaming behemoths for years, released their best game yet. And what a game THE WITCHER III: WILD HUNT is!

THE BEST VIRTUAL WORLD I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED

Yes, the world of The Witcher III is huge, far larger than Skyrim. Far more importantly though, it feels more real and it is full of life.

The game throws you in a world of unparalleled beauty with details that keep unfolding the closer you observe it. Every spade of grass and every pebble looks real and obeys the laws of physics as set by the new REDengine. From the night and day and weather cycles to gear that gets damaged and needs to be repaired by blacksmiths and from growing facial hair to NPCs with real lives, the world of The Witcher absorbs you in and never, ever lets you go. The flames of Igni feel absolutely real as do bodies of water. Beasts and humans will do the unexpected whereas the skies sheltering your travels are absolutely mesmerizing. One can easily spend hours in the game simply observing the gorgeous world around him.

There are some concessions to absolute realism one can take advantage off (quick traveling and in-battle repairs for example); however, purists can ignore them and sink in the extra hours to go old school. 

Now, all these come at a price. A couple of weeks ago, I made sure to upgrade to a nVidia 960 (pouring with a brand new 352.86 driver) and 12GB of RAM just for this game (at some point, CD PROJEKT has to ask ASUS for dividends!) and the game runs smoothly at Ultra. 

(Also, no save-files crashes this time around. So far).

AN EPIC SCORE FOR AN EPIC STORY
Once more, the music is an essential part of both the atmosphere and the gaming experience. The composers are different than those of the previous games and this translates into a novel approach to the world of Geralt of Rivia. You will recognize a number of variations on themes from the previous games and it feels like meeting old friends, matured yet still dear to you; however, I found the music more subtle and effective and not less powerful.

CHOOSE YOUR WEAPONS OF DESTRUCTION WISELY
Remember the days form the very first Witcher when you basically finished the game with the same sword and kept saving every last oren to buy the 5,000O leather jacket? Well, Geralt not only yields an extra crossbow but he also enjoys an ever growing choice of armor and weapons. Combine this with a huge library of books and an endless supply of potion and bombs ingredients and you will soon find your hero to be overburdened. And then you realize that there is no storage chest! Not to worry, the game now employes Roach's saddlebag (buy it as soon as possible and enlarged it). This way your storage is always close by. And, take my advice, do not sell anything! From ingredients to older swords, you will need them for crafting. And even find loot is abundant, it always feel great to gather all the ingredients to finally forge a sword or a piece of armor whose schematics you had been carrying for some time.

IT'S ALL ABOUT CONTROLLING THE WORLD AROUND YOU
Some people have been complaining about the PC controls and, up to a point, I can understand why. As with all games, I remap almost everything so that I am able to use only the right end of the keyboard (arrows for movement are default here but I use the Num-keys 1-5 to select my Sign, Num-0 to use it, / for the steel sword, * for the silver one, and so on). The game is enjoyable when set at the highest difficulty one can survive at so having quickly accessible controls are essential. That is why I hope to see a key-rebinding option Menu soon and not have to dive in the input.settings file.


The Expansion Pass will cover the Expansion (as per CD PROJEKT RED's practices, all DLCs are to be free). And if they are known for anything is offering a more than fair value for the released products.

WITH MY HIGHEST RECOMMENDATIONS!

Why? Because There Is A Sucker Nephalem Born Every Minute?

If paying for a small DLC, adding a single character, 2 hours of gameplay and randomized dungeons (unrelated to the story), the same amount the money you would for a complete full-priced game makes sense to you, kindly stop here. This review of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls is not for you. In any other case, please read on.

TOO LITTLE. TOO LAME. TOO EXPENSIVE.

Charging 66% of the original game's price for only 20% of extra content is disgustingly greedy. This is not an expansion in any sense of the word. It is an overpriced DLC - and a small one at that.

We need to pay as much as a premium game to get randomized dungeons in a game that was way too short to begin with?

And, you are not fooling anyone, the Crusader is basically the Paladin that should had been included in the game in the first place. Does this mean we can expect the next $40 expansion to include an Assassin and then yet another $40 will give us the Druid? With these people at the helm of Blizzard there seems to be no low they will not stoop to.

TAKING AWAY THE AUCTION HOUSE WAS A DICKISH MOVE

Let me make this as clear as possible: the problem was NOT the Auction House. That was a brilliant idea. The problem was that the game was designed in such a way to ensure that it was unbeatable unless you payed real money to buy virtual gold from Blizzard's Gold sellers (remember all those PVPbank "friends request? guess what!). After Hell level (and especially true for Inferno) it was impossible to survive long enough without full sets of powerful Legendary items. Blizzard made sure to keep the drop rates of Legendaries into the infinitesimal (a single drop after a complete playthrough. If you were lucky). Even at those small drop rates, it was still very unlikely to get a Legendary with useful attributes and stats! What is the use of a +300 Intelligence Manticore when high level wizards are useless with crossbows? Hence the need for you to keep visiting the Auction House - where the prices were always kept super-inflated. Hence the need for you to pay real money to buy millions of virtual gold.

So, if they were able to milk their own customers for more money, why did they yank it out? Because it got too expensive for them to operate and the class-action suits were amassing like a storm. Because of the wide-spread popularity of D1 and D2, D3 sold millions. Unfortunately for Blizzard, the disappointed gamers who abandoned the game were also measured in millions. So, the Auction House was costing too much to keep open. Especially when the number of people who lost great amounts of real money to Auction House "glitches" approached critical and the lawsuits kept coming one after another.

They did not do us any favours. And they certainly did not decide that the Auction House was "hurting the enjoyment of the game". They just decided to take away a major feature the original game was sold with, just to make some more money for themselves.

You think they "listened to their customers"? Please read on.

WHY IS THIS GAME STILL ONLINE ONLY?

After 2 years the verdict is out and it is definite: Blizzard cannot run enough stable servers to properly support a popular always-online game. Or they are not willing to unless they charge you a monthly fee like they do with World of WarCraft. In any case, their servers are fickle as ever, prone to loose connection at any time, in need of weekly day-long maintenance and always ready to kick you out if you leave the game to take a break longer than 5 minutes.

Have you ever lost a legendary because the servers hiccuped just after it dropped, not allowing you to pickup or open anything? Have you ever had to start over an area, missing on the random spawning of a rare event, just because the servers lost it once again? Yes, I am sure you know what I am talking about.

So, now that the Auction House is no more, what is the excuse for not making private/Single-player games free of any need of an online connection? None!

The game takes up 12GB of our HDD. Are they going to lie to us all (like EA did with The SimCity) that it cannot run offline for private/Single-player games?

THE FORCED PATCH (Loot2.0) WAS A DISASTER AND AN INSULT

Without warning,a about two months ago, BLIZZARD forced the Loot2.0 patch on all of us. This is what this much praised by the usual company shills patch did: it made sure that every single hour you had spend on the game up to then was wasted!

Did you grind for hours to get Legendary items (or, even worse, did you pay real money to buy gold and then buy them from the Auction House)? Well, you wasted your time (and money). Those Legendary items were now insultingly weak, much weaker than Rare (yellow) items.

Did you make endless runs of the same areas again and again to bring all of your heroes up to Paragon 100? Again, you wasted your time. Now Paragon levels are shared between all of your characters.

Any time you sunk into the game prior to the Loot2.0 Patch was now wasted. So why would anyone trust Blizzard ever again and play any more D3? Next time they want to release yet another DLC as an expansion, they will not hesitate, once more, to render all of your time spend in the game totally wasted.

Replay Diablo II or Titan Quest. They are real games.

Play Torchlight 2. It is a complete game.

Play Path of Exile. It is free on STEAM.
Or wait for Grim Dawn.

In any case, I am sure you were not born yesterday.

It's A Brand New PostApocalyptic Dawn

I am old enough to have played the original game when it first came out in 1997. I was a great fan of the series that followed and, thus, was very eager to get my hands on this latest installment. In a short sentence: Fallout 3  is a dream come true.

It is a cRPG game in which the player can alternate between the First and Third person perspective roaming a world comparable in size with Oblivion. The action has moved from Vault 13 and Southern California to Vault 101 and Washington, D.C. and the story brakes away from the previous bloodlines. However, the atmosphere of the original has been maintained and its scents sharpened: veterans will find it fitting like and old glove - whereas the new gamers are in store for a bag of pleasant surprises.

The graphics are wonderful, the guns detailed and the environments highly interactive. Short of a screenshot, imagine what would HalfLife-2 would look if released today. And similar to HL2, Fallout 3  does not require an...übercomputer to run smoothly. Once you see a NPC move though, you understand where the corners were cut.

Character customization is carried out in great style using the new and improved PIP-BOY at the beginning. You exit the vault and the harsh reality of a world that barely survived annihilation slaps you on the face. Adapt or perish.

The main storyline is there to be followed but Fallout 3 offers the greatest number of alternative choices I have ever encountered in a game! There is always a great number of paths to follow in order to achieve any goal - but every choice comes with a consequences tag. This is common feature of most classic cRPGs but in Fallout 3  I saw it implemented like never before. If nothing else, this sends replayability through the roof.

Side-quests offer little besides distraction and experience points (XP) to be spend on character improvement. XP are gained solely by completing quests, emerging victorious from fights, finding locations, picking locks and hacking terminals - and they are not limited by the action they were earned. Levelling up is based on 7 basic attributes [Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility & Luck - acronym?;)] that, in turn, affect your (13) specific skills. Since levelling

up is capped at Level-20, the game designers wanted to encourage replaying the game. On the other hand, it also means that your character will never realize its full potential (in case you are wondering why I withheld a star from fun, that's the second half of it).

The game is violent and gory but well within tasteful limits. Not so with the language - but it is tradeoff with realism. In a radioactive world, Sunday-school niceties are bound to go out the window.

What deserves a special mention is V.A.T.S. (:Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System) which opens new vistas in cRPG design. It is an ingenious system which lets you pause the game and target specific body parts of your opponents. The success of your attack still depends on your skills but the end effect is cinematic and amazing (remember the movie Swordfish?).

After the nuclear summer of 2008 (with all the LimitedInstallation-defective EA releases), this seems like a postapocalyptic dawn indeed! Bethesda decided to listen to the gaming community and did not cripple this beautiful game with any idiotic DRM scheme. Inputting a serial number and a DVD-check is more than reasonable.

The publishers of Fallout 3  understand that there is a fine balance between "protecting the product" and..."insulting your own customers". And they obviously view respect as the two way street that it is - and for this they deserve our support: buy this game, today.

Voting with our wallets is the only argument the gaming industry cannot afford to ignore. And it is about time to cast some well deserved positive votes.

Nothing Is Sacred Anymore...

The original Sacred was a great game that, although not exactly groundbreaking, it offered many hours of action-cRPG fun. What is more, its publisher had the good sense to price it reasonably from the start and thus fight piracy in the most effective way.

Sacred II, although enjoys more demanding environmental graphics and spell effects, is just another victim of clueless gaming industry executives. Instead of learning from the history of their own game, they'd rather idiotically jump on the "SecuROM/Limited Activations" bandwagon. After all, if they can hide behind the "everyone is doing it" excuse, who can blame them when the game does poorly?

They are obviously under the illusion that selling at full price a game that is actually rented will fail to be...noticed! Respect is a two way street - and underestimating gamers' intelligence is not a good start.

It is a shame that Sacred II got shot in the foot by its own publisher. Now, instead of being another success, it will simply be another game sacrificed on the alter of corporate Greed and marketing incompetency.

Avoid.

Deus Manifestare

During this ongoing Dark Age for PC gaming, when corporate Greed has coupled with pseudo-DRM schemes to stifle any original idea or creative process, I found myself, again and again, reaching for the classics. And Deus Ex is definitely a classic masterpiece.

Set in the near future, infused with equal doses of cyberpunk mentality and noir atmosphere, playing like an FPS with strong RPG elements (inventory, character development, modifiable equipment, secondary quests) - and yet one is better off avoiding shooting more often than not!. Whoever played Deus Ex can attest that this game will stay with you. Forever. And rightly so.

This is a game infused with life. The characters act natural. The script is brilliantly paranoid. And the whole setting will immerse you into this twisted world of technological possibilities and power.

In a perfect world, David Lynch would have realized William Gibson's Neuromancer. Short of that, we have been offered Deus Ex.

Sure the graphics may look dated. But I promise you that you will find no lip-synced modern game more appealing than Deus Ex  Even 5+ years old PCs will be able to render its full potential (although the game's strengths are hardly limited to its appearance) - and it is DRM-free.

And The Outliers Shall Inherit The Earth

Outliers and oddities are the signs of any healthy group or population. And by healthy I mean fit-to-survive. Because when change comes (and it inevitably comes), there will be blood but there will also be options. What was considered strange will now prove invaluable, and what was scorned will now be coveted.

The Gaming Industry is run by a small number of people at the top. They are no better or worse than the average Joe. They too have instances of brilliance and weeks of mental slumber; they too rely on luck and intimidation and connections to jump ahead; they too get scared and frustrated and greedy. Petty competition breeds fear and fear is not the best consul for one's character. The problem is that, because of the power they yield in the industry, their flaws get amplified and their bad decisions have a far greater impact. And nothing can take ways the bad aftertaste of been treated like cattle, to be herded in and milked again and again.

By buying out (and closing up) numerous gaming studios they have managed to consolidate their market share and lay the tracks towards their pay-per-play vision of the future. It all seems uniform and homogenized and inescapable. But, we only think there are no alternative options. There are plenty. And the experience they can offer far surpasses the miserly pay-for-as-long-as-our-servers-will-tolerate-you. Indie developers and independent studios are like grass and wild flowers: no matter how much ferroconcrete and weedkiller is applied, life and human creativity will find a way to break trough and thrive. 

A great example is CD PROJEKT RED, a small gaming studio from Poland. These guys came out of nowhere to bring us, so far, two of the greatest cRPG games ever produced, The Witcher and The Witcher II: Assassins of Kings. And that is not all. They proved to both stand behind their product and to show respect to their customers. Each game got a totally redesigned edition a year following its release. They gave it away to their customers for free. The did the same thing with every single DLC that was released: their customers received them for free as well.

This added value to their product, convincing more people to buy it. And when we do, we feel like valued friends. 

It is game developers and gaming studios like that we need to keep supporting. They are the hope that when it hits the fan (and it always does at the end!), there will be a robust PC gaming community to carry on.

Some days ago The Witcher III was announced. It is to be the last of the Geralt of Rivia Trilogy. I think it is the only game that can persuade me to switch from my trusted WindowsXP to Win7. And that is saying a lot. 

A Chest Of Gems. Some Polished, Others Raw

I have a confession to make: when the first IceWind Dale came out I bought maybe the first copy and rushed home to immerse into it. It was summer of 2000 and I had just polished off the excellent Baldur's Gate and the incomparable Planescape: Torment. A day into IceWind Dale and I absolutely hated it!

The graphics were comparable (all three games share the same engine) and the gameplay was almost identical. The music was excellent and certain tunes stayed with me ever since. The storyline was nothing to complain about - after all, any story set in "the spine of the world" can hardly go wrong! What I did not appreciate was the rushed feeling of a job on an impossible deadline.

In order to prolong the duration of the game, much smaller maps were stuffed with a far greater number of powerful foes - and almost nothing could be solved without combat. As a result, what was expected to be an enjoyable experience turned into a chore of endless autopausing, retargeting and constant battling.

Having said the above, I must admit that, in hindsight, my complains seem trivial. Little did I know at the time how far into hell greed would drive the gaming industry. Compared to 3-4 hour games, extra charges for essential content, Limited Installations and RootKits (of the likes of StarFORCE and SecuROM), well, games such as the IceWind Dale saga stand out as landmarks in PC-gaming history.

The expansion (The Heart of Winter) improved things somewhat but the series did not find its stride until the very good IceWind Dale II. I remember spending endless hours with the sequel and can compare it to the original Baldur's Gate.

A Good Old Soul Can Only Learn A Few New Tricks

The original Fate was the PG version of Diablo: cartoonish graphics, simplified quests, very limited gore and a cute child/hero running, fighting (and fishing!) in armor. The dungeons were endlessly random, the beasts well deserving their fate and the weapons and trinkets imaginative (and surprisingly expensive!). Overall, very fun to play!

Its first sequel, Fate: Undiscovered Realms, offered more of the same in a second set of dungeons. And now the second sequel improves little beyond offering yet another set.

Very few things are new in Fate: The Traitor Soul, this new standalone incarnation. True, you can now choose amongst four races (Human, Shadow Elf, Half-Orc and Cogger). The best one is still Human, a true Jack-of-all-trades: Elves are agile but have a very hard time defending themselves; Orcs are clumsy tanks, strong but with low dexterity; whereas Coggers are strong geeks but with no magical abilities.

There are new armor sets, new weapons and spells and new pets. On the other hand, I could discern no change in the graphics and sounds compared to the previous installments.

Finally, the two previous dungeons each get twenty extra levels to explore and plunder. This is a steal because for the price I remember paying for the first game you now get both the original game and its first expansion. On the other hand, you may find exploring all three dungeons and completing one run-and-fetch quest after another a bit tedious. Nevertheless, it is still good casual fun.

The Brand New PostApocalyptic Dawn Is Now Complete

I am old enough to have played the original game when it first came out in 1997. I was a great fan of the series that followed and, thus, was very eager to get my hands on this latest installment. In a short sentence: Fallout 3 is a dream come true! And now the dream is complete.

It is a cRPG game in which the player can alternate between the First and Third person perspective roaming a world comparable in size with Oblivion. The action has moved from Vault 13 and Southern California to Vault 101 and Washington, D.C. and the story brakes away from the previous bloodlines. However, the atmosphere of the original has been maintained and its scents sharpened: veterans will find it fitting like and old glove - whereas the new gamers are in store for a bag of pleasant surprises.

The graphics are wonderful, the guns detailed and the environments highly interactive. Short of a screenshot, imagine what would HalfLife 2 would look if released today. And similar to HL2, Fallout 3 does not require an...ubercomputer to run smoothly. Once you see a NPC move though, you understand where the corners were cut.

Character customization is carried out in great style using the new and improved PIP-BOY at the beginning. You exit the vault and the harsh reality of a world that barely survived annihilation slaps you on the face. Adapt or perish.

The main storyline is there to be followed but Fallout 3 offers the greatest number of alternative choices I have ever encountered in a game! There is always a great number of paths to follow in order to achieve any goal - but every choice comes with a consequences tag. This is common feature of most classic cRPGs but in Fallout 3 I saw it implemented like never before. If nothing else, this sends replayability through the roof.

Side-quests offer little besides distraction and experience points (XP) to be spend on character improvement. XP are gained solely by completing quests, emerging victorious from fights, finding locations, picking locks and hacking terminals - and they are not limited by the action they were earned. Leveling up is based on 7 basic attributes [Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility & Luck - acronym?;)] that, in turn, affect your (13) specific skills. Leveling up used to be capped at Level-20 (increased to 30 by installing the DLCs), as the game designers wanted to encourage replaying the game. However, with this increase, now your character can realize its full potential. Replaying the game is still a joy though.

The game is violent and gory but well within tasteful limits. Not so with the language - but it is trade off with realism. In a radioactive world, Sunday-school niceties are bound to go out the window.

What deserves a special mention is V.A.T.S. (:Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System) which opens new vistas in cRPG design. It is an ingenious system which lets you pause the game and target specific body parts of your opponents. The success of your attack still depends on your skills but the end effect is cinematic and amazing (remember Swordfish?).

This GOTY edition includes all 5 DLCs released so far: Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta. Compared to the basic Fallout 3  applying the above improves the experience immensely! As mentioned above, since one used to reach the Level 20 cap long before the endgame, increasing this by 10 levels will give you a brand new ballgame.

Augmented weapons, new territories, novel foes and unexpected story branching - all for the price of the original game. I own the original game and coveted after these DLCs in the past months, waiting for a complete edition such as this GOTY one. When it became available I jumped at the opportunity to get them all. And did not regret it for a moment.

After the nuclear summer of 2008 (with all the Limited-Installation/defective EA releases), this seems like a post-apocalyptic dawn indeed! Bethesda decided to listen to the gaming community and did not cripple this beautiful game with any idiotic DRM scheme. Inputting a serial number and a DVD-check is more than reasonable.

The publishers of Fallout 3 understand that there is a fine balance between "protecting the product" and..."insulting your own customers". And they obviously view respect as the two way street that it is - and for this they deserve our support: buy this game, today.

Voting with our wallets is the only argument the gaming industry cannot afford to ignore. And it is about time to cast some well deserved positive votes.

Risen From The Dead

The Gothic series had more bugs than a soft-drink spill in a hot summer day. These games had great potential as First/Third-Person RPGs but the quality control problems was what prevented the series from ever becoming Morrowind. And what is worse, the game developer (Piranha Bytes) did not learn from its mistakes: as the series progressed, the problems only got worse.

So notorious had the Gothic series become that the name itself was all but abandoned. Risen is what Gothic III was supposed to be (a Gothic 3.5 if you will) and Gothic IV will actually be named..."ArcaniA: A Gothic Tale"!. Although it was not completely able to escape its pedigree, and it may not be at the cutting edge of developments, Risen is a good game and it is (mostly) fun to play.

You start off a castaway with no history but endless potential. There is some wreckage loot but do not get too greedy: veering off to far into the sea will bring a sea monster upon you.

The progress is slow at the beginning and your character's initial weakness will tax your patience: expect quite a few deaths early on. However, if you weather out the initial steep incline you will be rewarded with a great cRPG that unfolds as you go on.

The graphics are not top drawer but the environments are very tastefully made. And the game designers at least tried to avoid endless repetitions: most environments are original, with a lot of effort put into them.

Like The Witcher, combat can be very engaging (but without the timed-clicking skill requirements). Where RISEN shines is the quality of its quests, the number and gravity of the choices offered and its story. And any true gamer will attest that those are the aspects that matter most for any cRPG game. After all, the greatest cRPG ever, Baldur's Gate, hardly had graphics to phone home about.

I bought this on the strength of its demo and the mostly positive reviews it received at Amazon (downloading and trying out the Demo is always a good idea). I was not disappointed.

Diablo III: The PG Version

Torchlight comes with some serious pedigree: Travis Baldree, designer of Fate, and Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer, co-designers of Diablo I & II put their heads together and came up with an action hack&slash isometric RPG game that can appeal to all ages. The result is a good game that will keep us hacking and summoning - until the ...3rd coming that is.

In fact, the game developers made sure to often pay tribute to the Diablo Series: from the background music while at the town-camp (you would recognize those Tristam guitar riffs anywhere!), to the draining health and mana fountains and to the voice announcing & warning, you cannot miss the timeless Diablo influences. Having said that, I found Torchlight to be something between a Diablo and a Fate game.

If you have experienced any of the Fate games you will be reminded of them often, although the heroes here are not children. The village NPCs will keep giving you straightforward quests (usually a go-and-fetch excuse to dwell deeper into the dungeon). Extra dungeons, however, can be accessed by accepting the extra quests of the male NPC in the south and by purchasing dungeon maps of various levels from the local merchants. Also, sometimes a spectral animal appears while in a dungeon: slaying it will open up a bonus dungeon where better equipment often becomes available. There is no traveling to/from town while in a bonus dungeon, so you better keep an empty inventory before entering it.

Yes, you do get a pet (a dog or a cat - but you can interchange them by purchasing and feeding them a special fish) and, yes, you can transform them by feeding them different types of fishes. Fishing is carried out in pretty much the same fashion: you wait for two concentric circles to merge and their color to change from pale blue to purple but it is less important than it was in Fate (so far I brought in nothing else but fish - no equipment or valuable items).

Now, when not playing an AD&D RPG (where I always choose to be a Paladin), I like to play other RPGs as a warlock, a fighting mage. The Alchemist class allows you to both cast powerful spells and exchange blows in the midst of the action (the other available classes is the Destroyer and the Vanquisher). The Destroyer is the up-close-and-personal tank warrior whereas the Vanquisher is the ranger.

When leveling up as an Alchemist, make sure to get both the (steampunk!) golems and the Ember Strike spell. Together with some good shielding spells, nothing can stand in your way.

Try not to go broke. At first I though, "finally, an RPG that is not stingy with its money". But that was only at first. Items are less expensive at the shops but (surprise!) they also sell for a pittance. The good news is that money drops like rain from slain foes. The money-hole is the enchanter: attempting to further enchant your equipment will deplete your funds faster than you would imagine! And you also run a considerable risk of having all of its enchantments removed. No post-dated checks are honored. No credit cards accepted. I tried.

You will get swarmed so be prepared. Place healing potions, defensive and knockback spells on quick-slots (1-0); equip your pet with self or group healing spells and a powerful summoning spell; and never forget to first stay alive and then keep pounding on your enemies. In the heat of the battle it is best to deactivate (Alt-key) the fallen-items labels (more on this later on) and to always keep an eye on your health and mana levels. Respawning is not free: it will cost you either time, money or experience.

The inventory seems small but, in fact, it is more than adequate. Potions and scrolls are stackable up to 20 and (more importantly) every item takes up only one inventory square (no, you do not have to carry your fishing pole, it is just there).

You can send your pet to town to sell off its inventory and the time it needs to return is much less that what it did in FATE.

And there are treasure rooms you can only access by finding and pulling levers (sometimes in specific sequence) to open doors or turn bridges.

Now, some negative points: first, the game is only a dungeon crawler, there are no outdoors locations. Moreover, the graphics of the the spells are very impressive but they can become really confusing as well. Even at maximum settings, unless the fallen-items labels are deactivated you will not be able to actually see much of the battle. That means alternating between fighting and looting - but it also means missing some important interactive objects (levers or ballistas). Also, when electric, fire, ice and poison spells get mixed the result is not something one can discern friend from foe in. It makes no tactical difference (you cannot harm yourself or your company) but it sure would be more enjoyable if you could aim more than...80% of the time.

Finally, the environments are beautifully designed but your path is often blocked by obstacles that visually you could easily bypass. Sometimes you find your hero running in place, stopped by a ...pebble.

Finally, some closing suggestions to the developers for a future patch: add the possibility to order our pet to bring back potions and identification scrolls when sent into town, and make it possible to change class in mid-game (keeping the level and redistributing the skill points).

All in all, Torchlight is a very enjoyable experience. It is easy to master, it is beautiful and it is fun for the whole family.

An Experience Just Short Of A Holodeck

Now this is what I call immersion!

In the past, Bioware has shown a tendency to surpass itself whenever developing a sequel (remember how much better Baldur's Gate II was compared to I - and the original Baldur's Gate was already excellent). Well, compared to this second installment, the original Mass Effect now seems like a typical space-RPG/Shooter.

Having played the original game will not only help you better insert yourself into Commander Shepard's boots (you can actually import your original character form the first game - choices and all) - but also appreciate the improvements more.

The story in Mass Effect 2 is darker and (without spoiling it) the choices harder to live with. Combat has been streamlined, with tactical decisions (using cover, taking the high ground) now being more important, without the game loosing its shooter character though.

Both the visuals and the sounds are exquisite. Not only are the graphics really impressive (and I am running WinXP so that is DirecX-9 mind you) and the sounds dramatic but the voice acting and dialogue integration should be taught in game-design seminars.

In this second installment there is no actual inventory to speak of (more on this later), loading times are shorter and better concealed (remember those endless elevator rides? Now forget about them), and accessing your special abilities menu has been simplified.

In a true Bioware tradition, the available companions all come with their own special abilities and personal stories to explore.

The selection of armor and guns has been reduced. There are about 15-20 guns to choose from and very limited loot. The guns I do not mind. Personally, I'd rather have a small number of well designed and fun to use guns at my disposal than a myriad of guns that in the end make no real difference (I am looking at you, Borderlands?).

Having said that, I missed the thrill of looting and upgrading my equipment (not to mention having a real inventory). I mean, that is a great part of the fun in any cRPG! I am not holding my breath but maybe one of the upcoming DLCs could take care of that?

And if I am to open the improvements-request file, how about speeding up those minigames in the next patch?

Finally, you also get a personal apartment aboard Normandy (an excellent idea introduced in Fallout 3) which you can equip with various ornaments and personal items (from fish for your aquarium to a...space-hamster - I call mine Boo).

As for the DRM scheme used, the game does contain SecuROM but (similar to Dragon Age: Origins and Fallout 3)  it only uses a disk-check. Mass Effect 2 neither requires any online activation nor does it limit the numbers of its installations. It is not the best solution possible but it is a compromise I can live with. If you still find this objectionable, you can now make an informed decision.

All in all, I found Mass Effect 2 to be a beautiful RolePlaying Movie of a game, an immersive cinematic-action shooter with limited loot and more story than equipment choices. In other words, Mass Effect 2 may not be a pure cRPG or a cRPS experience (Dragon Age: Origins and Fallout 3 still rule those segments) but nevertheless it is an experience well worth its admission price.

Go for the light-sensors Boo! Go for the light-sensors!!

(no, I am not explaining that...)

An Excellent Mythology RPG

Yes, this is what Diablo3 would have looked like (had it been released in 2006) - but this cannot be a bad thing. This is a beautiful game that goes well beyond being an eye-candy.

Titan Quest offers quite realistic graphics achieved even on medium range PCs (a 5-year old system I used to have with only its video card upgraded to a nVIDIA 7600GT, can run it easily with everything on high). I particularly liked that you can see the exact armor and weapons on your opponents and, after you killed them. Fighting a hard opponent is rewarding because everything drops for looting.

I am a great fun of AD&D RPGs. However, in Titan Quest (and its expansion) there is no deep background - except lots of excellent Mythology (correctly told for once). Sure, there is no "official 20-sided dice" getting thrown somewhere in the background - but do you really care?

Hack, slash, zap, burn and destroy. Loot, sell, buy and equip. Repeat as needed, until satiated.

You will surely enjoy it! A game that is is great to look at and great fun to play.

The cRPGs Are Back: Another Good Addition To The Genre

From Moses and Oliver Twist to Baldur's Gate and Fable, the story of the gifted orphan who has to fight hard to eventually find its niche has been told again and again. Avencast: Rise of the Mage turns out to be a mage...Not that original a story but they manage to pull it off - as it gets really fun!

You may have no choice on your character and only limited customization options, but the novel gameplay and innovative controls will reward you. Tapping sequences for combo attacks and dodging in a PC cRPG?! Brilliant! You can opt for either Blood Magic (melee) or Soul Magic (ranged), but to mix-and-match from the skill trees is a solid advice.

As with another cRPG gem to come out of Eastern Europe the same year (The Witcher), loading-delays are a minor nuisance; surprisingly, though, they are shorter than those encountered in games developed by much larger studios. The BALDUR's GATE Saga had long loading times as well, yet I hardly ever noticed.

What WILL get on your nerves though is the...camera. If you thought that NWN had bad camera movement, well, this is worse: it moves in a very limited range and will take some time to get used to and find a comfortable setting.

Graphically it would be placed just above Dungeon Siege: the spells have been impressively designed and the cut-scenes have been done in stills of exceptional taste. Moreover, one has to appreciate the fact that all dialog is spoken, not just written. The music though is a collection staple cRPG themes that are neither annoying nor unforgettable.

This is a long cRPG, spanning for over 20-25 hours if one undertakes all possible quests (ranging from funny to quite intense). Both cRPG fans and novices will undoubtedly enjoy this one!

When cRPGs Touched The Sky

Baldur's Gate II was the longest the most fun games I have ever played!

The original Baldur's Gate was excellent in all of storyline, gameplay, music and stability. Now, nowadays, sequels usually mean a graphically-improved expansion (at best). Baldur's Gate II is a rare exception of the sequel clearly surpassing the original. And in the case of such great original, this means a lot!

Words fail to describe the perfect harmony of brilliant ideas, emerging story-line and detailed coding that makes this game an unsurpassed classic! Do not let the slightly outdated graphics discourage you. They were cutting edge only some years ago - and you will be able to unleash their full potential even on mid-range PCs!

I have yet to meet anyone who has played it and not raved about it! Hard-core D&D fans will find the character building, fighting checks and balances and overall experience very close to the actual pen-&-paper games.

Casual computer gamers will notice none of the tedious stuff of other cRPGs as the gameplay runs smooth and beautifully.

You even have the choice to turn it into either a turn-based or an action game by tweaking the auto-pause options! I am telling you: this is how computers games should be!

You will let yourself get lost in the deep dungeons of the labyrinthic story; you will be laughing out loud to the humorous dialog; you will be surprised as to who is a double and triple-agent.

There is an evil beyond imagining unleashed and only you with your party can stand in its way.

Party members offer a multitude of unpredictable balancing points and diverging story-lines of their own: side quests, conflicts and love affairs enrich the story in so many original ways!

An unsurpassed classic!

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

Forgive me Source-Code for I have sinned. For years I was a dedicated PC-gamer. I though ill of gaming consoles, considering them consumer-toys rather than entertainment systems. Who needs overpriced and oversized gaming consoles that can play Movie-DVDs and even BluRayDisks when most good games are released for PCs as well and they look and play better on them, right? Well, the Nintendo Wii is a different breed.

Gaming on the Wii is an experience one has to live at least once - but preferably whenever he or she feels blue. Sure, it may not sport the cutting-edge graphical capabilities of a SONY PS3 or the game titles selection of the Xbox. Nevertheless, most Wii games take full advantage of the console's capabilities and the exclusive games selection include the unsurpassable The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the absorbing Metroid Prime Trilogy, the mesmerizing Okami and the soothing Endless Ocean: Blue World.

Not to mention the capabilities of Wii Fit Plus and Wii Sports Resort when coupled with a Wii Balance Board!

If you can still find one, I would advise buying the (Limited edition) black one. I keep mine in our TV room and the black blends perfectly with my other home entertainment electronics. In any case, do not miss the revolution.

There is simply no other console that offers so much fun. Both SONY and Microsoft have technologically excellent gaming consoles - but Nintendo is the only one that always keeps in mind that gaming is supposed to be fun.

Failure Of The Obsidian Order

Strange things expectations. Receiving the same item may trigger either satisfaction or disappointment depending on what you were expecting. From a game that was developed by members of OBSIDIAN, the people who had released such masterpieces as Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate, one expects lightening to strike yet another time. Unfortunately, they seem to have stroked out.

The first thing that strikes you with Alpha Protocol, however, are how bad the graphics are. Admittedly, great games have worked wonders and have been offering great fun with only limited graphics. There are games that are 10 or even 15 years old, when graphical capabilities were but a fraction of what they are today, and yet they are still more fun to play than most of the vapid eye-candies released these days. Unfortunately Alpha Protocol is not one of them.

The graphics look just bad. From the institutional colors to the awkward movements of the characters and the almost non-existent interactive environment, the game feels like a cookie-cutter Third-Person Shooter game found in a sales-bin.

Of course this is not a simple TPS game, it is rather a Third-Person RolePlaying Shooter (RPS). Your character advances in level and he also has an inventory. There are classes to choose from and skills to add to. There are different weapons and armor to equip with. Stealth is very important yet not the only way to go and there is a spy story unfolding through the dialogue options and cut-scenes. All this looks quite good on paper yet, somehow, it failed to work for me. And I have been an RPG fan for years.

The story is not absorbing and the characters are caricatures rather than the deep, complex characters one enjoys in a good RPG. The RPG elements are all there but they seem to get in the way of one another and work together. Having a time limit on the (Mass Effect 2-short) dialogue options is not a good thing either.

ALPHA PROTOCOL also sports...mini games. With variations of ideas we have seen in Fallout 3 and BioShock, hacking and lock-picking are carried out by completing mini-games that (just like in those previous games) get old and tedious. Fast.

As DRM goes, good ol' SEGA slipped in a Limited Activations scheme - but promised to patch it out in about a year, so the game will stay yours. If promises are kept that is.

An RPG that strives to also be a shooter, a stealth tactical game with the possibility of bullet time, an endlessly bifurcating story that manages to end up predictable. This is a game that takes up a lot of different elements on its brush but the picture it paints in the end is unoriginal if not confusing. Had all the different elements worked together, this would had been a masterpiece. Unfortunately, inspiration alone is not enough.

All in all, Alpha Protocol consists of a lot of good ideas that got thrown together but were then left underdeveloped and unrefined. Maybe they exhausted their A-game on developing Fallout: New Vegas, who knows.

Because of the developing team's history, I will be overlooking this one.

If you are out of ideas guys, I would propose developing a game looking like Diablo III and playing like Baldur's Gate. And if it had a steampunk setting it would be heaven.

Alpha Protocol will be remembered as a bump on the road.

Unconsecrated

The original Sacred was a great game that, although not exactly groundbreaking, it offered many hours of hack'n'slash-action/RPG fun. What is more, its publisher had the good sense to price it reasonably from the start and thus fight piracy in the most effective way possible. Apparently its common sense run out.

SACRED II: Fallen Angel, although enjoys more demanding environmental graphics and spell effects, is just another victim of clueless gaming industry executives. Instead of learning from the history of their own game, they'd rather idiotically jump on the "SecuROM/Limited Activations" bandwagon. After all, if they can hide behind the "everyone is doing it" excuse, who can blame them when the game does poorly? 

They are obviously under the illusion that selling at full price a game that is actually rented will fail to be...noticed! Respect is a two way street - and underestimating gamers' intelligence is not a good start.

There were no reviews for this edition (obviously most gamers have been ignoring this game) yet I was informed by the only discussion thread that it still sported the same DRM scheme. Nevertheless, the price had dropped so much it was irresistible. Unfortunately, it was not even worth the bargain-bin price.

The graphics have improved since the first Sacred of course, but they look dated and limited (especially for a game that takes up...12GB of HDD space!); and yet the animations still seem amateurish and stiff.

There are no new ideas, it is hack'n'slash by numbers. Inventory, LogBook, potions, loot...There are all there and yet there is no flavor. And what is with not being able to change the gender and the race of the classes? Who says that a Seraphim cannot be male, a Shadow Warrior female or an inquisitor African?

Now, the game also comes in a (supposedly) "Gold" edition. And I say supposedly because when a commercially flopped, 2-years old game is released in a "Gold" edition, one would expect to include not only its expansion but also all of its its patches. It does come with an auto-patching utility that informed me I have "the latest version" - which disappointingly did not include the Elite Graphics Pack.

Since it is a (extra!) 9GB archive and most PCs are now more than able to handle them, I see no reason why the improved graphics should only be available with the (obsolete) Collector's edition and not the "Gold" edition released years later!

DEEP SILVER could learn a thing or two on how to support and market one's games by the people who published The Witcher.

It is a shame that SACRED II got shot in the foot by its own publisher. Now, instead of being another success, it will simply be another game sacrificed on the alter of corporate Greed and marketing incompetency.

Only For Its Most Faithful Disciples

It has been eight years since the previous installment of the Disciples franchise. Although this new gospel is, most probably, bound to be branded apocryphal and anticanonical (if not outright heretic), it still offers hours of a good old Turn-Based RolePlaying/Strategy Gaming.

In Disciples III: Renaissance, the graphics have been improved significantly, the gameplay has been streamlined but there are no major deviations from the beaten path. Experience points can now be attributed to either the hero or its units. Buildings and units focus more on quality rather than quantity. The ability tree of the hero can now branch into three specialties (Warlord, Archmage & Guild Master). And, contrary to what we had been used to, only three factions are available (Empire, Legion of the Damned & Elves). In step with the industry's greed, I am guessing the rest of the game will be sold as...DLCs.

Finally, I will refrain from spoiling it for anyone but the story twists do not always leave a pleasant aftertaste. RPG purists prepare to be exposed to some ...ethical variations.

If a TB-RPG gamer, I would suggest Kings Bounty: The Legend instead. However, completionists and hardcore DISCIPLES fans cannot miss on this third installment.

Taking Down An Angel

Only three years in it, and CyberPunk 2077 is the most anticipated release of the decade.

CD PROJECT RED, the gaming Studio behind the legendary Witcher Series is bringing together mature Role-Playing Gaming in a Gibsonian hard-boiled cyberpunk setting.

Based on Mike Podsmith's 1990 Cyberpunk 2020 pen-and-paper RPG, the story has been hinted to borrow and pay homage to numerous pillars of the genre, from Blade Runner to the Sprawl Trilogy.  

Fixers and Nomads, NetRunners and Techies, Razor-Girl Psychos and Max-Tacs - the mix keeps getting ever more explosive by each passing week.

Will it hold until its release in 2015?