Of All The Lairs In The World...

Evil Genius is a game that stays for you for a very long time - and is bound to find its way to your hard drive every time there is a new Bond film hype. After the deluge of the latest DRM-ruined games, I went looking through my gaming library for older gems to play. This is definitely one of them!

In a classic Ian Flemming's setting, you start in a desert tropical island where you are to design and build your secret lair. In a Sims tradition you do not control your minions directly, instead you control the Evil Mastermind behind everything that is brilliantly nefarious: a stocky Bloomfield-lookalike in a gray Mao/Nehru jacket and an insatiable mood to take over the world (the other choices are the heavy-accented seductress Alexis and efficient Shen Yu - but we all know how chauvinistic the world of self-indulgent espionage can be).

Besides the Evil Genius, you can (partially) control a couple of major Evil Henchmen/women. I said partially because once given an order they will take their sweet time to execute it - if ever. No wonder Bond always won in the end: the Evil nemesis had to do everything himself!

Including making ends meet. Yes, even the most evil of geniuses apparently cannot print money. Hence, the need to built hotel and vacation resorts - not only to hide but also to finance the plans to take over the world. From hotelier to World Dictator - everyone not born with a silver spoon in his mouth has to pay his dues I guess...

Nevertheless, the real fun of the game is designing your lair and setting up the traps! Since there seems to be an endless number of possible combinations this alone multiples the replayability of the game.

Plan carefully ahead and watch the invading Secret Agents be thrown helplessly from one trap directly to the next - and finally out of your lair (or into a body-freezer room). Until the Super Agents that is.

The Super Agents make the game almost impossible to win. Again, in a true Ian Flemming fashion, good should prevail - and should do so easily (funny that concept never seemed to caught on in real life...). Nevertheless, the game is not unbeatable - it just needs a lot of practice. (I needed more than half a dozen tries - and they were all fun!)

In these Middle-Age days of PC gaming, when the industry decided to go to the dark side, it is a good idea to unwind with a brilliant classic.

Because What Everyone Really Wants To Do Is Direct

During the months of boycotting most new PC games releases (for harbouring vicious DRM schemes and Limited installations), I found the time to replay a number of older games that truly are much better in many ways. Most importantly, innovation.

The Movies is a cross-genre hybrid, beautifully combining a Sims game with a business-RTS one and a highly creative movie suit. Not only do you get to step into the shoes of a Hollywood mogul, but you get a shot in "realizing" that film you always had in you.

The game starts with the design and building of your Studio (using up the allocated funds), complete with Script stables, Sound stages, Production offices and, well, casting-couches? (not so surprisingly that part of Hollywood was not included). Casting is pretty straight forward, plucking some lucky characters from the waiting line and turning them into stars. Or script writers. Or directors. Or janitors. Yes, life is a bitch.

What I liked about this game was its historic accuracy, simplified efficiency and clear-cut design. Not only are most stages in making a movie readily available and the means to achieve this evolve as time progresses, but everything has a familiar feel and self-evident practicality as well.

Stars throwing tantrums and directors relaxing too much with the sauce; ageing stars in need for nip/tacks - and always keeping an eye out for whoever has the bigger trailer!

What I loved about this game was the opportunity to plan out the script in a detailed story-board and then shoot my own movies. The bad news is that if your visions are long and complicated your studio will be... bankrupt in no time, as it will release fewer and more expensive movies. But that is besides the point, is it not? What is a bankrupt studio in the wake of a iconoclastic new director towards his vision?

In the end, although very entertaining in many ways, the strong suit of this game is not its Movie-Business Management Simulation but rather its Movie Creating editor. Simply, there is no other game like it.

Sure, Rimms, Flash & Bling-Bling. But What Is Really At Work Under The Hood?

Need for Speed: Undercover is yet another EA release which, gameplay and graphics problems aside, suffers from the bundled DRM scheme: SecuROM with Limited Installations.

This is a well known scheme based on a custom-made augmented version of SecuROM 7+, used for over a year now (from BioShock to Mass Effect, Dead Space and Red Alert 3) and it has been proven to offer overall...zero protection from piracy. But, of course, fighting piracy was never amongst its aims.

SecuROM is not a Digital Rights Management system but rather a spyware subroutine that unavoidably comes bundled with most major game releases. It borrows into the Root of our systems, masking itself from the System Manager and refuses to be removed - even after one completely uninstalls the game it came with. SecuROM is indeed used as a cloaked dataminer, gathering information on the system and its user's activities and sending them to its mothership. It is the metho

d the industry's behemoths chose to pave the way for their coveted Pay-per-Play future.

Turning our own PCs into their...insatiable coiners is what the gaming executives are having wet dreams about. Games that we will have to keep paying for again and again.

And that is where the idea of Limited Activations comes ins: not only it nullifies the value of a game once bought, killing the second-hand market overnight, but it also familiarizes gamers to the idea of having to buy the same game over and over in order to keep playing it.

Need for Speed was a series I loved in the past and would love to keep playing in the future once the DRM idiocies get resolved. But not at this price.

Some people are indifferent to these issues - and I respect that. In a free market voting with one's wallet is the most effective expression of opinion - and everyone is free to cast his vote in whichever direction he seems fit. My experience though taught me that most gamers would like, at least, to make well informed decisions.

And who would not want its customers well informed?

When We Were Afterburning Towards A DRM-Free Future

After Prince of Persia and EndWar, Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. was the third major UbiSoft retail release to come out protected not by any intrusive yet ineffective DRM scheme but simply by gamers' honor. And, on top of that, it was a very good game.

There had not been a similar game released for some time: simplified arcade-like action with easy controls, breath-taking cinematics and impressive graphics - that will run in full even in low-to-mid-range PC systems. My advice: as with any flight combat game, using a joystick will make things so much more enjoyable and intuitive.

If you are more of an authenticity buff (and still have tons of free time to spare) I would advise going with a combat AddOn for Flight Simulator or a good old Jane's title. You will find no realistic cockpit and detailed controls in H.A.W.X. So, is this flight combat game dummied down? Well, yes. But I promise you: you will have fun like never before!

Hammerheading over cityscapes and coming in from the Sun over the desert has never been more easy to master. The electronic aids and bare-minimum controls will let you enjoy the fights and start mastering them early on.

This is a 4star game but I decided to give it full marks just because the Canadians at UbiSoft kept walking the narrow path towards a DRM-free future. It cannot had been easy to take such bold decisions during a bear economy. They deserved our support. Too bad they did not appreciate it

Mindless Fun At The Wheel

Let's get something out of the way: if you enjoy Vin Diesel movies, I very much doubt that you consider picking up The Wheelman for its...cultural value. I for one sure did not.

This is fast driving, impossibly jumping, using-your-car-as-a-weapon, how-can-it-possibly-be-exploding kind of game. Fun? You bet!

The graphics are beautiful (similar to NFS: ProStreet but less shiny than NFS: Undercover) and the cars acquire (more or less) realistic dents, scrapes and damages when hit. There are objectives marked on the map and cops giving chase. There are beautiful women giving orders, getting double-crossed and relying on your driving skills to drive through everything and see them right. Need I say more?

Keep in mind that The Wheelman was released during UbiSoft's sane days of releasing DRM-free games. So, you can not only greatly enjoy this game and do so with peace of mind that your computer will come to no harm but the game also becomes yours to keep.

It's A Blue Planet. And It's All Yours To Explore

Ever since I watched those old Jacques Cousteau undersea documentaries, the idea of one day snorkeling myself never left my mind. So far I never had the opportunity to dive but I often catch myself daydreaming about underwater excursions. Until I can add a check-mark beside that item on my before-I-am-too-old-list this game offers an excellent substitute.

Dive & Relax. Leave the world behind you and become on with the underwater realm. The locales are beautifully designed, the fish, whales, dolphins and the rest of the marine life move in a very realistic fashion. The missions are pretty simple and most have an educational parameter but it is mostly about exploring at your own pace. Well, you do have to mind the oxygen level...

The underwater sounds are very well made and placed whereas the background music is a soothing companion. All in all Endless Ocean: Blue World is an excellently designed and produced diving-simulation game.

This is a game that will bring you home early, it will put a smile in your face and it will relax you like no other game.

I cannot emphasize this enough: this game is digital massage. It soothes your nerves, relaxes your body and puts you in a very easygoing mindset.

Take the plunge.

The Absolute Asphalt Driving Experience

I have been playing PC games all my life and have tried most Racing/Driving games, from the legendary Outrun to the latest Need for Speed installments. I have to admit, Grid is the Best - by far!

The collection of cars is not vast but rather exotic and exclusive. The graphics are unbelievable, gorgeous and detailed. And the sounds (although will not accurately follow the engine revs) they greatly add to the total immersion. This is such a beautiful game that I have to tear myself from my screen not to keep playing.

There are three views (hood, cockpit and behind the car), all working as they should but what I really appreciated was the collection of available racing types: from closed circuits to demolition derbies, rest assured, you too will find your favorite.

This is not an easy game: deactivate the driver assists and you will find yourself fishtailing all over the place! And keep in mind that dragging is frowned upon in...LeMans-24. Not to mention riding a rattler! That's wright: Grid features totally realistic damages! Hit another car or the guard-rails and your fine tuned drive will get crashed and bumpers will fall off - and its handling will be affected accordingly!

Choose your name from the setup list and pit-bosses will call you by name (sadly, no...NeuroSplicer option though). Another nice touch is the random events that can occur in a race: from engines failing or bursting into flames to tires going flat or bouncing off, there is not a dull moment and the game keeps you constantly on the edge.

Now, CodeMasters seems to be able to learn from its mistakes. First of all, unlike Dirt, Grid does not require an...ubercomputer to run. The requirements are not "all invited" but not "next generation" either. I managed to run it fine on the 6 years old lab computer (a P4 3.2GHz with 2GB of RAM and a 7600GT nVidia).

Moreover, unlike Dirt which was damaged by StarFORCE, Grid harbors a... milder garden variety of SecuROM (without limited installations RootKits). There is clearly room for further listening to customers' dislike of DRM schemes (hence the star withheld), yet, in all fairness, this is an improvement.

So, if you are boycotting SecuROM you have been warned. Otherwise, recommended.

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.

Street Racing: The ...Jerry Bruckheimer Version

A combination made in heaven. This was like when I watched the movie Snakes on a Plane, my reaction was: of course, why did no one ever think of this before?!

There is a great number of driving and racing games, some better than others. There is even a number of shooting&driving games. However, Split/Second is a breed on its own.

When was the last time you had to race a collapsing overpass, dodge the load of an out-of-control crane or a wrecking ball, drive under a crash-landing cargo plane, survive a missile-firing helicopter attack, drift in an exploding airport hangar, or survive a Terminator-2 canal race?

Drifting (no wall-slamming penalty!), drafting, sling-shooting, close-calling crashes and General-Leeing your car will fill your Power Bar. Once it is full you can unleash PowerPlay attacks onto your AI opponents. And, trust me, you will hate them! From start to finish they will be scrapping your tailpipe - and you only need to slip for a split second to total your car. You can leave paint all over the walls but the moment your grill touches that central pillar or dumpster you are totaled. The good news is that respawning only takes a second - no time for the adrenaline to subside.

Choose the best car for the track and handling it will be no problem. Nevertheless, this is not an easy game - and, frankly, I missed those. Nowadays everything seems designed to be breezed through and quickly move on to the next game. Not this baby. Random events (not to mention unexplored shortcuts) make racing the same track feel like a new experience so memorizing the tracks will not be of much help. You will have to really hone your skills in order to advance. Quick advice: remap the PowerPlay buttons to something convenient as timing your attacks is essential.

Fallen behind and only half a lap to go? Well, drive your A-game - and make sure to... drop a burning bus on the opponents you could not overtake.Careful though: this knife cuts both ways. First, you must learn to avoid the attacks you triggered yourself and then you must be ready to speed around the ones your opponents spring on you. Split-second decisions are required throughout.

You are not a passenger so stop gawking at the scenery. Strap in and drive for your life!

The visuals will keep you at the edge of your seat and the screeching and explosion sounds will make the hairs at the back of your neck stand up every time. This is like actually being in a Hollywood summer action-blockbuster. My only gripe is that there are no licensed cars (what we drive is always sleek and gorgeous but, sorry, no Gallardos, no DB9s, no R8s, no Shelbies...) whereas customizing our rides is kept to a minimum. That would have taken the experience to a whole new level!

Split/Second, obviously, is more of a well-made arcade than a simulation game. And it is great FUN!

I had initially awarded the game 4 stars but any game that brings you home early to experience it again deserves full marks.

A 20/20 Blur

2010 seemed to be a racing season. A great number of new racing games were released, most trying their hand on novel approaches to the genre. But not all GTs are created equal.

Just before Blur I was playing Split/Second so now the comparison is fresh and easy to make. Since both games are more Arcade-racers than Simulators, I decided to do a side-by-side review.

What Blur has over Split/Second:

- Licensed cars. Fantasy cars look great but it is always more satisfying to drive real supercars. Yes, that means you have to start with the obligatory stupid compacts - but good ones get unlocked soon.

- Much better music. Disney simply dropped the ball here, Split/Second is in dire need for some epic music to go with the blockbuster mentality.

- You have a map that shows both your and your opponents' positions, something I would have liked in Split/Second.

- More realistic damage (keyword: "more"). Split/Second crashes are realistically spectacular but you can body-slam anything forever and the only thing that shows are some...scratches. Blur is no simulator but it is more realistic (for a game that offers power-up repairs that is) - unless you dislike driving a car with its rear spoiler hanging out.

- You get a usable rear-view mirror (for as long as you can keep it from cracking). In Split/Second you have to use the NUM-2 to sneak a peak back - and risk crashing since you cannot look both ways.

- No rubber-band AI. You earn a margin, you get to keep it. It may be less thrilling all the time but it saves you the aggravation of driving your heart out only to loose the No.1 position by a cheap pass at the very last second.

On the other hand, this is where I found Split/Second to be better than Blur:

- Much more spectacular driving. Drifting, drafting, jumping and, of course, exploding things is simply so much better than activating a white shield or firing some feeble electric charges.

- Better designed and larger tracks that can even be modified during a race.

- Less complicated. In Split/Second you just drive, drop an exploding truck (or an entire...freeway) onto your opponents and avoid the same happening to you. In Blur you have to choose and pick up power-ups (max of 3), select the next one, aim and fire at your target; you have to pick up and use the repair power-up to maintain the health of your car; you have to drive through a number of yellow gates to win over fans in order to unlock more cars; and then you have to earn lights to advance (I guess it had to be something, but ..."lights"?).

- Customizable controls. Come on Activision, this is not 1995, why do we have to use both ends of the keyboard to drive a car in Blur? Turn left and right with the L/R arrows yet accelerate and brake with the Q- and A-keys? And someone thought this to be such a good idea that there is no customization option? Well, now you know what must be included in the next patch.

Different gamers have, of course, different preferences, so some of the above mentioned aspects may weight differently to everyone. Both games harbor SecuROM disk-checks, so their DRM scheme is comparable.

Nevertheless, in the end, where I think Blur clearly lags behind Split/Second is the pure fun factor. I know this is subjective but I enjoyed Split/Second much more than I did Blur.

I would never though the day would come that I would be recommending a ...Disney game over an Activision one. But life is nothing but full of surprises.

It Wants Its Cut Just For Driving Us Around

Mafia II is is a game with all the trappings of a hit that was to go down smooth - only to turn out the hit was nothing but a setup. And the supposed marks are the ones pulling the strings. Would a made man allow this to happen?

THREADBARE UNDERSHIRTS UNDER FLASHY SILK SUITS

The first thing that grabs you is how dull the graphics look once the (well-done) cinematics end. On top of that, it is not that the environments are badly designed, it is that the same patterns are used over and over resulting in...chain deja-vue episodes. This cookie-cutter approach could had made it easier to get lost - unfortunately, there is not even a chance for that.

FOLLOW THE SCRIPT OR ELSE, CAPICE?

If you enjoyed the freedom experienced in the GTA series, well, do not expect anything close to that degree of sandbox roaming. This a linear game only set on an open-looking background. Which, once more, shows that looks were considered more important than substance. And if you make a mistake and have to reload, be prepared to replay quite a long sequence because this is yet another game with only an autosaving option - and, once more, 2K behaves as if autosaving points are charged by the unit.

JUST KEEP MAKING THE ROUNDS PAISANO!

The next disappointment is how repetitive the gameplay itself is. "Great fighting mechanics" means all of two options: hitting or backstepping. Whereas, "realistic driving" means that your cars handle like boats - and you will still get killed once those 1940's-Detroit death-traps hit a wall or a tree. Realistic? Sure. But fun? Veramente not! All the mini-games and the money-worries are simply too trivial and half-baked to save the day. Fight-by-numbers made it to the big leagues...

NICE SHADES MAN, BUT CAN YOU SEE THROUGH THEM?

As if all of the above were not enough, the camera placement was so bad it reminded me of the notorious NeverWinter Nights. And sometimes, this turns more into a spectacle than a game.

VITO! CLOSE THOSE SHUTTERS, NOW!

I always had a problem with censorship boards (from totalitarian censorship bureaus to Nielsen ratings) but, at the same time, I do respect the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit. Well, Mafia II will manage to enrage both sides of the generation gap. If the slow-news days keep up, expect some "outraged" news-reports on the content of this game before school begins. True, there are numerous instances in which this game justifies its MATURE (17+) rating - but this hardly makes it an adult game. Like a Dutch school painting of children looking like smaller adults, Mafia II offers the juvenile version of a grownup world. I very much doubt that any teenager (which obviously is the target demographic for this game) will be impressed.

And for all this ...fun, we still have to activate the game and tie to permanently to a STEAM account. This is clearly not one of those game you would want to keep, so shouldn't you be able to resell it? Well, 2K GAMES thinks not. You can now make your decision accordingly.

My advice: pass on this infamnia and, instead, get your Mafia fix from a good old Godfather Trilogy weekend. This game is so bad it almost enters cult territory.

But it is also boring so it fails to even do that.