I found the gameplay pretty easy to follow and the weapon variety surprising. When your hero starts getting badly hurt, notice how they treat death. She’s knocked down and an arcade-like message flashes for her to “Fight For Your Life!” Apparently, by doing enough damage as she’s down, perhaps on her knees, on the verge of death, she’s given a second chance. I could just hear Mick barking at Rocky on the mat: “Get Up Rocky Gaddamn You!”

A big apology for this podcast getting to press so late.  Real life has been getting in the way of things for the last week and a half, but things are getting better.  And believe me, beyond a technical issue for this podcast, it is well worth the wait.  Why is that you say?  Well, we had our writer from the UK, Vikki, making an appearance on the show.  So for once, we have a really good English accent on the show, although a really bad accent shows up as well at one point.

Features in this podcast include shopping for good, not so cutesy DS and DSi games, and the Xbox 360 and PC Ones to Watch titles, so it was not a fanboy oversight that they were not on the site.

Music is provided by Revolution Void, and mixed as always by Stephen Munn.

Download the podcast from here or subscribe to the podcast using one of the services below: Also make sure to review us on iTunes.

Each Space Invader is procedurally generated, corresponding to the files on your machine Shoot down the alien and the game wipes the attached file. And while the aliens will not shoot at you, if any of them touch your ship, then lose/lose deletes itself. Imagine putting this on an important PC and testing yourself to see how far you can get before permanently crippling your box. It’s like Namco’s version of Russian Roulette. Hardcore!

In the final analysis, lose/lose is more art project than game, foisting real world implications on your in-game actions. Creator Zach Gage asks “As technology grows, our understanding of it diminishes, yet, at the same time, it becomes increasingly important in our lives. At what point does our virtual data become as important to us as physical possessions? If we have reached that point already, what real objects do we value less than our data?”

So how long until some idiot in the mainstream press catches wind of this and calls it a virus?

Source: GameSetWatch

Time travel is one of those gimmick concepts that just seems really hard to mess up when it comes to entertainment.  Star Trek has done time travel to death, and yet it always seems entertaining.  Hiro Nakamura is rather amusing to watch as he ponders over what is right and wrong when it comes to his time travel powers.  Even Jean Claude Van Damme was somewhat entertaining in Timecop.  With all of that in mind, I was ready to play through Darkest of Days, mixes in police work with time travel and the visiting of several historical periods in time.  Unfortunately, it seems that time travel can be made to be more of a chore than entertainment at times.

Darkest of Days puts you in the shoes of a guy that goes by the name Morris.  While fighting during Custer’s Last Stand, you are injured, and about to be killed, when a bubble appears and a man in a tech suit comes out to rescue your character from certain death.  It seems that because there is no record of our character actually being at Custer’s Last Stand, we are an enigma, and thereby snatched from time to be used as an enforcer for time travel.  Again, think back to Timecop and you get the idea, except that you boss is a mysterious woman, and the company is called KronoTeK.

Your assistance was needed as someone has been altering the past, putting figures of significance in harm’s way.  No, no one that is famous is ever in danger, but more like everyday people that you have to rescue, because of the ripples they affect in the time stream.  These people take you to several points in history, including World War I, World War II, the Civil War and Pompeii.

Reading into that, it seems like this game should be a no brainer.  Time travel, old school weapons, and new school weapons, along with watching how the touted engine can render these large scoped battles.   However, the ambition seems to be lost in-between the design phase and the finished product.  While time travel should be exciting and different, all the battlefields seem strangely familiar.  Occasionally a few textures change, but when I come across the same fence from the Civil War in the fields of Pompeii, there are some serious design flaws in the game.

Each of the period weapons were fun to use, and really left you hanging from time to time, as it takes a bit to load a single shot musket.  I really liked the sound and details in the older weapons.  A lot more care seemed to go into these weapons vs. the terrible sounding futuristic weapons.  When I got my first shot at using an assault rifle, I was ready to lay down the carnage, but the assault rifle sounded rather tame, like a house cat, instead of the lion it should have been.

When you get close up on a character, there is a fair amount of detail in the faces, like scars, blemishes and other items.  However, you are never really close enough to anyone to appreciate the details.    The same can go towards the uniforms that everyone is wearing as well.  The Civil War uniforms really show a lot of detail to the point that you know who the important people are on the battlefield by their different look.  Other items really show off the graphical power of the engine, like heavy duty PhysX details including volumetric fog effects and the leaves and debris flowing in the wind.  Battles encompass hundreds of participants, making you feel as if you are part of a huge war machine.

Darkest of Days also employs a very nifty mechanic that will limit a person’s ability to spray and pray when it comes to attacking enemies.  Every now and then while on a battlefield, you will see enemies that are encased in a blue aura.  These are people that have to survive the battles they are in.  Kill them and it hurts your upgrade points score, as well as summoning enemy agents in to prevent you from righting time.  I really had to watch my fire as I wounded the blue targets, while killing the others.

Bugs are a huge problem to get past in Darkest of Days.  For one, the stability of the title is lacking on the PC side.  I have had the title crash at least seven times, with anything from random errors, to one time crashing my video driver.  Enemy AI also suffer from bad programming, as some will run right up to you, turn around and attack a wholly different direction.  Having hundreds of people on the field of battle will do you no good if they show the same amount of intelligence as Forrest Gump.  While not bugs, the entire nature of the maps kills me as you feel you are in a big, open world styled game, but you run into invisible walls everywhere, or a knee high fence that you cannot jump.  These are the gaming conventions of several years ago, not now.  It just feels half finished, similar to a tech demo.

In the end that is what Darkest of Days feels like, an extended tech demo.  The ideas are all there, they just falter when it comes to the implementation stage.  If you would have showed me this title during an Nvidia tech demo for PhysX, I would have been impressed, but this is being marketed as a full product, and that is where the biggest issue comes into play.  The game just does not have a lot of fun in the box.

Darkest of Days strives to be a good game, with a lot of great ideas and a ton of design philosophy.  However, the end product is a mix of uninspired gameplay and instability in the client.  If it was not for the idea in principal that you can see there, the game would have scored lower, but as it stands, Darkest of Days gets 2 Aeropausonauts out of 5.
Check out Darkest of Days and other PC reviews at Test Freaks.

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II is being expanded through it’s next stand alone expansion.

In Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising you will take command of the Blood Ravens and defend the sector against the Chaos Space Marines of the Black Legion.  Purge the chaos filth and hold the chapter together as traitorous forces work from within to try bring down the Blood Ravens.

* Upgrade your squads with new legendary wargear and unlock new special abilities, as your squads advance to level 30. Will you remain steadfast to the Emperor or risk heresy to gain new dark and destructive powers?
* In multiplayer swear loyalty to the Chaos Gods and pit your bloodthirsty warband of Chaos Space Marines against the new units and reinforced armies of the Space Marines, Orks, Eldar, and Tyranids.

Relic seems to listen to their community very well. I notice the most demanded feature for the next Dawn Of War II is to play as the Chaos Marines. However, you can only play them at multiplayer which got the community talking about how tired they are playing as the Blood Ravens.

I don’t feel as strongly as this reaction however it seems like The Chaos Marines lend themselves the “Diablo like” single player campaign. While playing DOW II it seems like you are doing mass genocides that works better for villians rather than the heroes.

At any rate I’m looking forward to the game.

My facebook Via THQ

Seen on The Escapist.

Eidos have announced that fans of the football/soccer management title Championship Manager 2010 will be able to pre-order the 2010 release for … well, for however much you’re willing to pay, actually.

The offer went live on the official CM website last week and permits downloads of the game from as little as 1p (although there’s a £2.50 GBP transaction fee, bringing the true minimum price to £2.51 GBP). This offer is good right up until the game launches on 10 September.

“This is the first time an initiative like this has ever been tried in the video games market,” says Roy Meredith, General Manager of developer Beautiful Game Studio. “This is the best Championship Manager the studio has ever made, and we want as many people as possible to try the full new game, as once they try it, we’re convinced they will come back again and again.”

You may recall that there was no 2009 release. The publisher stated that this was to ensure that the developers had the time they needed to develop and improve on the series, but it could have also be due to the fact that part of the original development team ran off and set up rival – and arguably more successful – title Football Manager in 2005. But marketing gimmick or not, there’s no denying that this unprecedented step has got people talking and players downloading a title they may not have considered buying before. Take the Blake household as a case in point; my husband hasn’t bought a Championship Manager title since 2006, preferring instead to do his nerdy sport management stuff with Football Manager and on a console rather than PC, but this has totally won him over. We’ve pre-ordered for a modest £5.00 GBP (£7.50 GBP including the transaction fee). Happy days.

Old school fans will be pleased to know that a special edition box will be available for £29.99 on traditional retail shelves on September 11, complete with additional CM Season Live updates and bonus DVDs. Pay-what-you-want customers will have to fork up another £5.00 GBP to get ahold of the CM Season Live DLC.

What do you think? A one-off marketing ploy or is this something we could see more of in years to come? What do you think would be a fair price to pay?

Source: Gamespot UK

Square Enix has updated the official website for Final Fantasy XIV with a healthy helping of information and images. Among the content you’ll find profiles on the races, a description of the Armoury System, a bit of the history and lore of the world, a brief example of how the job system works, and information on the interesting Guildleves System. You’ll also be treated to many delicious images of the beautiful game world.

Head over to the site to have a look. It’s well worth it!

Also, if you have yet to enjoy Alex Mercer and his exploits in Prototype, you can pick that title up anytime from now until August 13th at 20% off.  This brings the price of Prototype down to $39.99, which is a pretty good price for this open world title.

The last deal up for the week, is the release of The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut marked down 30% to $27.99.  This pricing is good until August 12th, and will hopefully get those that have been waiting for a console release of this title to try it out on the PC.  The Witcher is a fantastic RPG title that should be experience by all RPG fans.  And with the Director’s Edition, all the nudity has been restored.  What’s not to like here now?

Let us know if you pick any of these up.

Valve is giving Left 4 Dead owners another campaign called “Crash Course” linking between the events “No Mercy” and “Deathtoll”. PC users will be able to play this campaign for free and Xbox 360 owners will have to fork up $7.  The map will also include a survival mode. The DLC will be available sometime next month.

So  there you go Left 4 Dead boycott, there is your free DLC (PC only).  I’m interested in their reaction to this whole new campaign.  Will it satisfied their cause?

Via Rock Paper Shotgun