Zeus_gb

It's a miracle this game ever got released because it had been delayed so many times, but I for one are glad Interplay finally released it.

Good points:

Decent enough graphics including full motion video.
Great voice acting.
Very atmospheric music.
Control system is easy to use.
Party management is easy.
Unusual magic system.
Box art and novel.

Bad Points:

Bugs.

The graphics in the game were supposed to be top notch but because of the many delays they were never quite as good as the competition.  Having said that they were still decent enough for a dungeon crawler. 
All the NPC's and monsters in the game are fully rendered in full motion video which was quite amazing for the time.

In most games of the era the voice acting is terrible but in Stonekeep it's actually impressive. The NPCs don't  sound dull or uninteresting they sound alive and like they somehow belong in the world.  I would probably say it's some of the best voice over work i've heard in my 20 years of playing computer games.

The control system is so simple to use it's only the WASD keys for player movement, with the mouse for aiming and using weapons/magic.  With such a simple control system it really opens up the game to everybody even novices.

Party management is just as simple as the control system.  Just click an item and drop it on the scroll to carry it, pick up an item use the mirror to equip it.  So so so simple even a complete novice (which I was at the time I first played it) can get to grips with it in seconds.

I've seen  a lot of magic systems in my time but the one in Stonekeep is one i've not seen before.  The magic system is based on runes that you find on scrolls throughout the game.  To use the magic you write the rune on a rune staff, select the rune to use it and then use which ever mouse button corresponds to the hand it's in.  You can also find power runes that you can use in conjunction with the standard runes.  Power runes give spells more power, potency, longer lasting effects etc.

I've never ever read a review that had something about the box art in it but I just had to mention it.  The game comes in a huge black box with a huge hollowgram sticker on the front of a skeleton and It looks awesome.
When you open he box you notice a small novel co-written by the legendary Steve Jackson himself (Fighting Fantasy Role playing books and Games Workshop fame).  The book gives you a little bit of basic back story to Stonekeep which I must say it a nice bonus.

However Stonekeep did have it's problems and one was bugs, it had quite a few. Sometimes certain things in the game that were scripted wouldn't happen or the game would crash.  Once I even lost my save games due to the save corruption crash bug.

Overall Stonekeep is a great dungeon crawler with bags of character and great voice acting.  There's no denying the game has problems but if you can see past them you'll find a game worth playing.

*Does the Faerie players dance* Wahooka Wahooka Wahooka! LOL

Good Points:

Great weapons.
Great graphics.
Very atmospheric levels.
RPG elements, such as character upgrades, weapon upgrade etc.
Background music is very atmospheric.
Different characters.
Much better voice acting than in the first game.
Secret unlockables.
Stationary guns.
Controllable MECH (we've been crying out for this since the first game).
Character specific special moves.
Runs well on multiple cores!
Supports dual mice and keyboards for better co-op on one PC.

Bad Points:

Levels are smaller.
Doesn't have any of the classic tunes from the first game. :(
Story isn't as well explained as I would have liked.
You can't use just one character through the whole game.
Torch has super long life batteries, would have been better with the torch from the first game.
The game is too short.
Still no LAN or internet multiplayer. :(

Frozenbyte are back with another old school shooter. Shadowgrounds Survivor is a spin off of the original Shadowgrounds. In Survivor you play as three survivors of the initial alien attack, you have to fight your way through hordes of aliens to join up with the others and save the colony from a massive impending alien attack.

Graphics:

The graphics are just as great as the original if not better than the original. Survivor has new environments such as snow, sewers and even a volcano.

Sound:

Survivors sounds are just as good as the original and has some really nice explosions (what can I say explosions are Good!).

The background music is very atmospheric and really fits in with this overall much more spooky game but sadly none of the great tunes from the original made it into the game. It might just be me being picky but the Shadowgrounds soundtrack is awesome, I even brought it direct from Frozenbyte (signed by Ari Pulkkinen himself) and it's now taking pride of place on my MP3 player.

http://www.shadowgroundsgame.com/new/index.php?page=buy_soundtrack Ok plug over!

I'm thankful to say that the voice acting in this game is a lot better than the original. Not to say all the voice acting in the original was bad it just wasn't up to the standard i've come to expect.

Overall:

This is another great game from the people at Frozenbyte however it's not the game I was expecting. I was expecting to be able to control what ever character I wanted through the whole game, not just at certain parts in the game. I also felt that the levels were a little too short just like the full game was a little too short.

The new features such as the MECH, stationary guns and the other RPG elements added by Frozenbyte do add some new blood to the franchise (well with two games I guess it's now a franchise). Even with these features the game is too short and the story isn't explained as well as I would have liked.

Both Shadowgrounds and Shadowgrounds Survivor have some brilliant gameplay and features. I think what Frozenbyte needs to do is find a middle ground between the two games and make that into a game. It doesn't necessarily have to be in the Shadowgrounds universe but it would be a great game. They should also add LAN and/or Internet multiplayer.

Anyway if you enjoyed the original then get this, chances are you'll enjoy it too.

Here's looking forward to the new IP Frozenbyte are working on!

The premise of the game is in the future oil starts to run out and conflicts start to control what little oil is left. The Russian and Chinese have formed an alliance (Red Star Alliance) and the US/Europe are the Western Coalition. What started with a small incursion by the Red Star Alliance will end up a war.

Good points:

Decent enough graphics.
Interesting premise.
Half decent single player with some replay value.
Drones that are really fun to use.
Some intense firefights.
A pistol that's actually good.
Vehicles are quite good.
Not too linear.

Bad points:

Some awful voice acting.
AI can get very stupid at times.
Exploration is limited.
Vehicles can get stuck on the stupidest things.
Only one multi player type.

The graphics in the game aren't the most cutting edge you'll see but they're by no means bad. The NPCs in the game move quite realistically but the rag doll physics can sometimes be a little over the top.

Frontlines premise is interesting and something that hasn't been done recently. It provokes you into thinking about our reliance on oil and what might possibly happen if it ever started to really run very low. What lengths would a government really go to to secure more oil?

The mission objectives are kinda repetitive, secure this part of the map, hold this part of the map, destroy these tanks. The only difference is of course how you go about doing it. Do you rush, flank or use drones to clear up. There are even airstrikes and gunship strikes to use. These things add a little bit of strategy to the game but were not talking really deep. The single player for this game isn't half bad, the different paths to objectives with the use of drones add some replay value to the game and make the game feel less linear than most FPS games.

When I first heard about the drones I thought wow cool. The drones are a great addition to the game and really fun to use. There's nothing like using an assault drone (small robot drone equipped with a mini gun) to soften the enemy up then running in to finish them off.

Some of the firefights in the game can get really intense. You can find yourself being shot by a helicopter, while shooting a tank that's shooting at you all the while being shot at by enemy soldiers.

I love using pistols in games so i'm always happy when a pistol is actually good to use. I love the pistol in Frontlines in some respects it's better than the assault rifle.

The vehicles in Frontlines are quite good, but there's nothing revolutionary about them. A tank, Humvee, Comanche Helicopter etc etc

Here we go again with the bad voice acting. The reporter is the only person that sounds good. The others are mediocre to awful. I would also like to point out this English people speak anything like the voice actors in this game. *Note to developer is you really want to have English sounding people in games please use English people*.

AI or rather artificially not very intelligent. The AI can be really stupid at times running at you, standing still while shooting you, not shooting at the enemy when one of them is standing right next to them etc etc.

The game limits the exploration of the map by telling you to get back to the operations area (AO) and if you don't you take damage until you either get back to were you're apparently supposed to be or you die. I think this is a bad idea but I suppose it was probably done to keep people on target or because of some level limitation.

When i'm in a vehicle I expect to be able to go down a few steps not get stuck on nothing. There are quite a few occasions where i've gotten stuck on what appears to be nothing. There are also times where metal boxes don't move, vehicles such as the tank crash into them and stop dead. If it was a tank it would plow straight through them not just stop.

When I booted up multi player I noticed that there was only one mode and that was frontlines mode. Basically it's Team Domination mode from UT, an objective based multi player where you try to keep hold of points while pushing the enemy back so that you can capture their points.

Overall some of the things in Frontlines are very much like the Battlefield series but it's not the rip off some people are calling it.
There's also talk about massive problems with bugs and stability problems. I encountered one bug and that stopped me from letting go of a stationary gun. As for stability problems i've had no crashes at all, i've had no lag/freezes. My FPS has been a solid 60 all the time except for a few times when there were lots of explosions on screen and even then it was still over 30 FPS.

This is a good game with a good single player and some great ideas (drones) in it but the AI and vehicles need sorting out as well as more multi player modes being added.

Review version: 1.01 with hotfix installed.

Review system: QX6850 Extreme, 4GB RAM, 768MB Geforce 8800GTX, SB Audigy 2 ZS, XP SP2.

You reprise your role as the "Master Chief" doing battle with the Covenant and the Flood.

Good Points:

Decent enough story.
Good voice acting.
Dual wield.

Bad Points:

Awful graphics.
Multiplayer on LIVE.
Vista only...yeah right!

Halo 2 has a decent enough story but there are things that aren't explained at all. How did they get back to Earth? How did Johnson survive the Flood attack? All of these questions aren't answered in the game but thankfully are answered in the book.

Good voice acting is allways a must for any game. Cortana, Master Chief, Sgt Johnson reprise their roles and on the whole they do a fantastic job especially Sgt Johnson he is awesome.

Duel wielding in always great fun especially the Brute plasma rifles, they are just hand held death.

Now i'm a believer of graphics not being important but what the hell happened to the graphics in this game. The graphics aren't the greatest in the world obviously because it's an old game from a console but the graphics are no where near recent games. There are horrible looking textures on buildings and vehicles, it's certainly not what I was expecting from a game released in 2007.

The only multiplayer available is through Microsofts LIVE service of which there are two tiers silver and gold. Silver is the cut down version that only allows you to use the game browser whereas Gold will allow you to use quick match. Anyway I didn't play multiplayer because I don't want to have to sign up for LIVE. Why should I? Why should I have to pay to get all the features that other PC games give you for free?

"Enhanced for Windows Vista" that's what it says on the box but that's a load of ****. It's hard to imagine that it's enhanced or optimised for anything. In fact the only reason it only works on Vista out of the box is because they made it that way, I reviewed this game on an XP machine and the game works fine.

Overall this is a lacklustre port of what was a half decent console game. They seriously needed to release this game before 2007.

Review PC: QX6850 Extreme (3.0GHz Quad Core), 4GB RAM, 768MB Geforce 8800GTX, SB Audigy ZS, XP SP2.

When I first saw the screenshots for this game I thought wow the cell shaded graphics look really good and different to what we usually see in RPG games. I played the demo and got a little bit bored with it but I persisted and then brought the full game twice (long story). I'm really glad I brought the full game, on my first play through I spent well over 100 hours playing it.

Graphics:

The cell shaded graphics in the game are really good and very unusual for an RPG game. Sliverfall's world environments tend to be well detailed but the game really stands out when you get into certain cities in the game.

Graphically the monsters are really detailed and fit it with the rest of the world really well. The animation of the monsters is also really good and adds to the overall experience of the game.

Sound:

Unfortunately the sound in the game is pretty standard really, there's nothing really there that stands out and even the music isn't that great.

Most of the voice acting is very good, as with every game you'll get a certain amount of poor voice acting and that rule applies with Silverfall but thankfully there is a very limited amount of poor voice acting.

Experience/overall:

I found the game to be a great old school RPG with lots of character development options coupled with a believable story. The premise of nature versus technology is really interesting and fits in well with the world that they designed.

Silverfall is a worthy successor to Diablo, most people might not think so but I enjoyed this game a lot more than Diablo.


Good stuff:

Large and immersive world.
Loads of monsters (people have complained about this but Silverfall is all about leveling up, get over it).
Large variety of monsters.
Good in game tutorials, I didn't need to look in the manual.
Ability to alt tab back to Windows (a must have for any game!) :).
Nice and lite interface, I don't know why people complain about it so much.
Lots of replay options.
Lots of character development choices.
Different companions to choose from.
Nature versus technology premise is really good and to my knowledge hasn't been done in an RPG before.
Monsters are graphically well detailed and their animations are really good.
You can actually play through the game again at the end of the game with your current character.

Bad stuff:

On first release there were broken quests but with the 1.17 patch most things have been fixed. I personally haven't found any broken quests.
Long load times.
Bit of a resource hog. Certain parts of the game can use 1.2GB of RAM.
Path finding in certain places can be a little bit off.

My review does in no way do this game justice all that I can say is go and buy this game!

The game starts off in Pic des Pyréneés, France with a hostage situation and then promptly moves you into the familiar surroundings of Las Vegas.
As soon as you arrive in Las Vegas it is taken over by terrorists (how inconsiderate of them) and panic is widespread. As the story develops you get to go to different locations around Las Vegas including the Convention Centre and a few other locations such as a small town in Nevada.

Good Points:

Decent graphics and sound.
Better voice acting than the first one.
Customisable load outs (weapons, armour, helmets etc)
ACES system

Bad Points:

AI can be stupid at times.
Frustrating at times.

Vegas 2 is a lot like it's predecessor Vegas 1 graphics wise, although the Vegas 2 graphics do seem to be much sharper than those of Vegas 1.  The graphics aren't going to blow you away by any stretch of the imagination but they are decent enough for what the game is...a console port.

The sound quality seems to have gone up a notch, weapons now sound much better than in Vegas 1. It also appears that they've fixed the sound issues that plagued Vegas 1 (repeating sounds etc).

Vegas 1 had some really horrible voice acting in it especially Jung and Michael. You would think that two of the main characters would have decent voice acting but thankfully that has been sorted in Vegas 2. The Voice acting in Vegas 2 for the most part is consistently of good quality.

New to Vegas 2 is the fully customisable load out. Unlike Vegas 1 where you could only change your weapon load out in Vegas 2 you can change your armour, weapons, helmet, camo paint and even wear tactical sunglasses (gotta love those sunglasses). Being able to customise your load out adds another level of challenge, do you go in lightly armoured and fast or heavily armoured and slow?

Another addition to Vegas 2 is the ACES system (Advanced Combat Enhancement and Specialisation). The ACES system rewards you by unlocking weapons, armours etc based on the tactics used in the game. ACES in divided in to three parts Marksman, Assault, and Close-Quarter Battle (CQB). For example a head shot will count towards marksmanship, shooting through a wall will count towards Assault, and killing an enemy at close quarters will count towards CQB. By getting a high enough score in a category you can unlock a specific item in that category, for example the assault category will unlock a new assault rifle.

One thing that hasn't been fixed since Vegas 1 is the AI. I've found terrorists just standing in the open while I blow them away or i've just slaughtered everybody in a room and two terrorists are standing on the balcony outside oblivious to what just happened.

At times Vegas 2 can be frustrating especially when enemies know exactly where you are even though they'd not even seen you. Other frustrating times are when one or both of your team mates go down because they were stupid, usually by standing out in the open. Not forgetting the age old problem of your team mates standing in your line of fire. I think you should get bonus points for shooting your team mates in the back of the head. :P

Overall Vegas 2 ticks most boxes but it's not for everyone. With no more mission planning, more forgiving style of game play and a much more shooter orientation the Vegas series has very much moved away from the roots of the Rainbow Six franchise. Die hard Rainbow Six fans may feel that the game has become shallower as a result but one things for sure this newer formula makes for a game that's easier to pick up.

Review system: QX6850 Extreme (3.0GHz Quad Core), 4GB RAM, 768MB Geforce 8800GTX, Windows XP SP2.

You're a construction worker called Carson. You start the game at the top of a sky scraper that's under construction and you quickly see the start of the Nazi invasion. You decide to fight back and join up with the resistance.

Good things:

The games premise.
Great explosions.
Decent enough music.
First sequence is impressive.

Bad things:

Really really short singeplayer campaign.
Technically broken (Slowdowns, texture glitches, in game loading times etc).
Terrible hit detection.
Game world isn't very interactive.
Bad weapon sounds.
Bad voice acting.
Multiplayer?

I found the games premise to be interesting and I makes you think about a lot of things. What would have happened if Churchill had died? or if Kennedy had lived? Unfortunately that aspect of the premise is never explored, it's just something you see in the intro.

One thing I do like about the game is the explosions. The explosions are look really cool and sound the part as well.  I think the explosions are only of the only redeeming factors in the whole.

The musical score isn't half bad either, it blends well with the game but doesn't seem to stand out.

Out of the whole game the first sequence when you see the invasion is the best part of the whole game. Nazi planes flying over head, blimps in the distance, explosions, people screaming, planes flying between sky scrapers. In short the first sequence is awesome, it's a shame that such a promising start leads to repetitive and dull shooter.

Err.....where's the rest of the game? You thought COD4 was short well then you've seen nothing yet. A person who is familiar with FPS games will be finishing this game in three to four hours. At the end I felt like i'd just played an expansion pack.

Technically the game is broken, very broken. There are numerous texture glitches in the game and some of the textures are just down right awful.
It's not just the textures that look awful the animation of the characters is awful they act like characters from a game that's several years old and the facial animation is just as bad.
During the course of a level the game stops dead and the hard drive gets thrashed while it loads more game data, there is no warning the game just stops for several seconds. Another annoying technical problem is the game slows down in random places for no discernible reason. My PC can run Crysis on high so this leads me to believe that the optimisation on this game is quite frankly pants.

Hit detection.......lol! The hit detection on this game is beyond awful, how is it that they can shoot me but I can't shoot them? Answer is I don't know there just seems to be an invisible wall. Why can they shoot me through a window but I can only shoot them through small panes in the glass that are broken?  I know maybe it's a small force field or maybe it's just bad design but it's still annoying.

For the past couple of years now we've been really spoilt with FPS games that have interactive worlds. Crysis with it's destructible environments, COD4 with the ability to shoot through walls and now there's Turning Point with the ability to shoot glasses on a table. OK joking a side now there isn't a great deal you can interact with in the environment, shoot a few glasses, shoot a window perhaps, this lack of interactivity makes the world feel stale and completely without life.

Good weapon sounds are a must in any FPS game and that's another area that Turning Point leaves unticked. The weapons sound like you're firing stud guns, even the Garand doesn't have the familiar clang when the mag runs out.  Maybe it's just because i'm part of the generation that loved the first games in the Medal of Honor and Call of Duty franchises but the clang is important.

If anyone knows anything about my reviews they'd know that I hate bad voice acting and I will always call a game up on it if I think it's bad. Well Turning Point it's your turn now. The voice acting in the game is dull, uninspired and quite frankly doesn't make me care about any of the people in the game.

Just like most FPS games released in recent years there's a multiplayer. Well there would be if there were any servers available! I tried to access multiplayer and it seems that no one is playing it...can't say I blame them.

Overall this title is a lacklustre unoptimised port of a thoroughly awful console game. In my opinion this is a step back in the genre don't play it and if you see it on the store shelf runaway as fast as you can!

Review system: QX6850 Extreme (3.0GHz Quad Core), 4GB RAM, 768MB Geforce 8800GTX, SB Audigy 2 ZS and XP SP2.