Homes

To make it short, yes. I picked up The Thing for the Xbox at my local Gamestop for only $4. A steal on any grounds. I first played the PS2 version a few years back and the atmosphere of a chilling station overrun with mutant beings brought me back to this version.

You are Blake, the leader of a squad sent in to investigate mysterious events at a desolate and snowy military base. As the leader of a squad you can well lead your followers. In a Sims-ish way your team members are very smart. If you need health, the medic will know to heal you without you telling him to. In the same way the engineer will also do his job, usually repairing a blown out fuse box, when you order him to. Your squad members can be either medics, soldiers, or engineers, each with their own respective job. While the friendly and enemy A.I. is usually smart they can tend to get stuck on the environment or just stand while bullets hit them.

Since there are alien mutant enemies everywhere you need some serious firepower. Don't expect to find it here. The Thing features average weapons like the shotgun, submachine gun, and a flame thrower. Speaking of flammable things, the only way to kill bigger mutants is to shoot them until their health is so low that you can whip out your flame thrower and roast them.

The game mainly compiles of you moving toward the next area, surviving, finding your lost squad members, and escaping from the corrupt government soldiers. At many times I got frustrated because of difficulty or having no ammo to shoot some stupid, annoying headcrap-esque aliens. The atmosphere of The Thing is very intense but the gameplay experience is bogged down by frustrating areas and sometimes bad camera angles. If you are looking for a cheap and worthwhile niche shooter, The Thing is for you.

Shivering Isles is the first official expansion for TES:Oblivion. While Knights of The Nine added another quest line and a few more hours of gameplay, Shivering Isles does double that with a larger main quest for the special land and dozens of side quests.

Nothing graphical has changed here so you can expect to see top of the line graphics that require an average machine to run decently. The main point of the expansion is New content, whether it be creatures, quests, items, details, or settings, Shivering Isles has it.

Many new creatures such as Shambles and Scalons make their debut in SI. These are not only more creatures to fight but they each have their own special abilities like Electryas poison you very quickly and Scalons are stronger while near the water. This is a fun touch that adds to the surreal feeling you get while playing Oblivion.

The new area of Shivering Isles is a seperate land that can be accessed by a door on a tiny island in the Heartlands. The mere size of the Isles is about 2 Imperial Cities. When you aren't on a quest it is just plain fun to explore the new areas and see what cool lore or details you can find in the landscape.

The main SI quest is by far the best experience you will get from the expansion and is along the fun factor or the Main quest in Oblivion. You meet Sheogorath and he asks you to help him stop Juggalag and The Greymarch that destroys his realm at the turn of every era. Along the way you meet lots of new characters and have a new take on the lives of NPCs in the game.

The items in SI are a great add with many being better than the Original drops and just being unique in attributes and look. Since Shivering Isles isn't your average place you can also expect to find many odd weapons such as a dagger that heals the enemy on strike.

At the end of the 20+ hours of Shivering Isles you feel as though you have a new take on Oblivion as a game and it feels good. I really reccomend Shivering Isles to any person who likes Oblivion and the TES series and wants to get more gameplay hours out of them.

Pros+ New everything- quests,items,creatures,areas,gameplay
Fun look on the TES world, reminiscent of Morrowind

Cons- No major Gameplay changes, still need a higher end PC, could have been a few more hours longer

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s development was started in early 2001. Six years later us, the gamers, finally get to play this highly anticipated Shooter.

Set in Chernobyl, the site of a large nuclear explosion and radioactive waste land, you are a STALKER. A Stalkers purpose is to collect and cash in on artifacts from Chernobyl that each have special abilities and can be worth a great deal of money. You however are more than your average Stalker. You find yourself with a PDA that gives you one main objective. This is to kill a certain man named Strelok.

While you may eventually kill this Strelok you can explore the world and do what you please. It is kind of like Oblivion the way you have free will to do what you see fit. This is a great aspect of STALKER and if you do explore you can find many odd and time worthy things, such as rare artifacts and some cool weapons.

Speaking of weapons there are lots of them. While some are just common you can amp the level of them with certain ammo types like armor piercing or if your lucky you can find upgraded guns. The upgrades on these special weapons range from higher rate of fire to more damage. In addition to special upgrades you can equip them with silencers and scopes you find along the way, which is even cooler. The depth with the gun types is rich and they even have condition meters, so you can't use the same gun throughout the whole game without it jamming constantly.

Survival is key in STALKER. This is stressed to the max and is seen throughout the hellish environment as mutant dogs fight bandits and corrupt militants demand a bribe to get past a key bridge. Again choice comes into play in these situations. You could shoot the militants in the face and meet the consequences of army helicopters or you could pay the money and be short for food or medkits. The possibilities are almost endless.

The environment is also a main part to the game. The overall feel of the setting of the post apocalyptic land is amazingly detailed. This is shown by houses still with dinner plates on them from before the blast and the many hidden stashes.

While STALKER is mainly a survival shooter it does have some fun RPG elements to it. You aren't able to build your characters skill persay but you do have an experience level that gives you better ability and control with more advanced weapons. The inventory managment will be used constantly and can determine how fast you move.

I really noticed the reality feature in STALKER. Whether it be the regional body damage or the health system that makes you patch yourself with a bandage when shot, the realness of the game is definately noticable.

As with most of the newer, better looking games STALKER suffers from long loads and high requirements but still looks great for an outdated graphics engine. The only other fault is the rare, limitless spawns of enemies (like at the Freedom Base) where you can actually see the bad guys appear out of nowhere and run to attack you.

At the end of the 20-25 hour run you will be satisfied with STALKER even if you get a "bad" ending instead of the other 6 possible endings. The main point is that if you love shooters, have a decent PC, and don't mind a good challenge then you should really check out S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Story: You are a miner on a Hubbardium Mining Station, Alpha Prime. You help your friend and an ex-lover. Cover up, Lots of Shooting.

Graphics: Doom 3 Engine/Unreal. Looks fine, runs fine.

Audio: Average Repeated Voice Overs, VO Quality decent.

Missions: Around 10+ missions, each lasts about 30+ minutes

Features: Cool RECON device that lets you see through walls to hack into cameras, small robots, and electronics to make booby traps.

Multiplayer: None

Requirements: Average PC Weapons: Wrench, Pistol, Shotgun, Machine Gun, Laser Sniper Rifle, Rocket Launcher, Grenades, etc.

The Good: Looks nice, different sci-fi esque story

The Bad: Difficult, Average FPS gamers can try Normal but all others should go Easy

The Ugly: Quickloading 10 or more times after not being able to find any health stations and being forced to take down a room of 6 enemies and a turret.

Replay Ability: Short/None

The Bottom Line: Shows that the Doom 3 Engine still looks good but the difficulty is very annoying and enraging at times. Play at your own risk.

Story: Um How should I know? You can't play the campaign unless you have a PhysX card (maybe you need to pay, but I thought this was a FREE game...)

Graphics: Nothing crazy, Looks alright

Audio: Average

Missions: Only got to play Deathmatch, so Kill the Bots/Friends?

Features: Crazy destructible environment that owns your PC!

Multiplayer: Only thing you can play unless you have the PhysX card. Pretty Basic, Some cool looking guns but same old same old

Requirements:Pretty much a PhysX Card and/or a Very High End PC

Weapons: Cool looking, futuristic weapons.

The Good: The Idea of a free FPS that plays well

The Bad: Needing a PhysX card to play most of this game, let alone run it decently

The Ugly: Getting a Maximum of 8 fps while playing with all the settings on low, and resolution at 800 x 600

Replay Ability: I'd like to be able to play first...

The Bottom Line: If you have PhysX try it! Its free! If not, not worth the 900mb download. This has so much potential but fails to give us a good game without needing useless hardware.

Story: Human vs Beasts. Fight for your right to live!

Missions: Mainly slay the enemy race and everything along the way, including buildings, houses, environments, and ultimately the enemy's main headquarters.

Controls: Easy to learn and execute in close and ranged combat.

Features: Many classes from the common (rangers, healers, warriors) that builds up points for higher classes such as Benomoth (Huge Freaking Troll, Check picture above!) and Siege Catapults (for destroying buildings)
Awesome RTS-FPS combination that allows ranged players to fufill their FPS needs, regular players their 3rd person wishes, and for the RTS guru, the commander mode which allows one person from each race to command (if your team listens...well that's up to them) and guide his or her players to victory.

A.I.: None really, all enemies and allies played by real players.

Loading Times: Medium. Nothing really fast nor long.

Graphics: Very good for an independent engine and developer. Props to S2 games!

Audio: All your normal grunts, screeches of pain, and battlecries.

Multiplayer: Only. Works well; however, there is a single player tutorial and practice mode that allows you to practice against single monster types.

Requirements: $30 and a Average PC.

The Good: A great sequel that shows that hard work pays off.

The Bad: Unique in it's kind. Maybe too unique, so much so that this game may slip under many people's radar.

The Ugly: When your 5 hour, free trial ends. Time to pay up!

Replay Ability: High.

The Bottom Line: If you liked Savage you will not be disappointed. If you want to try a new online multiplayer game that combines FPS-RTS-3rd Person, drop the 30 bones for this game.