Announcement

Hey guys, been a while since I posted. Well....I think it's been a while since any of us have been active on this site. Oh well. Anyway here's a cool article I saw at Yahoo! today. For those that want to purchase the much-anticipated Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, you might want to take a look at this:

A.

http://us.i1.yimg.com/videogames.yahoo.com/feature/special-vest-lets-players-feel-video-game-blows/534921

It basically talks about a special vest that allows players to feel the impact of shots, stabs, and blows in a video game (hope it doesn't kill you). It will be oou on November for $190, so it's your call if you wanna try it out. Seems interesting, but I wouldn't spend that much on a vest considering I still have 7 holiday games on my list.

B.

Next, I'd like to talk about the upcoming game, Hellgate:London, which most of us are planning to get this Halloween. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you have other games on your priority list), the recently released demo has been criticized for its dullness, repetitive gameplay" boring quests, bad graphics, and awful voice acting. However, many of the beta players (no, not me =P) say that the demo is a bad indication of the real game. For one, it takes up 1.3GB in your hard drive, but only has 10 quests, most of which are located at the start of the game. According to them, the beta was a lot better, so, now, I don't really know if it's worth buying. You can check out some articles I posted below to help you decide; if not, just wait for the reviews from Gamespot and IGN.

1) http://www.blizzplanet.com/ (Hellgate:London Beta from the p.o.v. of a W.o.W. player)
2) http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/hellgatelondon/download.html?sid=6181264&tag=topslot;title;1&om_act=convert&om_clk=dltopslot (Rantings about the Hellgate Demo)
3)http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25994941&tag=recent_topics;title;2 (More Ranting)

C.

Lastly, I recently bought The Orange Box (CoH: OF was out-of-stock), and I can definitely say it's a must buy even though I've only just played Portal and Team Fortress 2. Come on! 5 games for the price of one (although Portal is only 2 hours while Episode 1 is only 4 hours), who could possibly ignore that. Oh, and do take note that it becomes 6 games if you opt to install Counter-Strike. If you don't believe me, just look at the reviews:

1) http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2episode2ob/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=tabs&tag=tabs;reviews
2) http://pc.ign.com/articles/825/825992p1.html
3) http://pc.ign.com/articles/827/827296p1.html

A fair warning though, the installation, updating, patching, and downloading of Steam in order to play the game is a VERY VERY VERY VERY tedious and LONG process, but, if you're patient enough, it's well worth it. It took me 3 hours before I had everything properly working. Before you get to play the game, you have to:

1) Download Steam (Valve's Piracy Solution, damn pirates, giving me a hard time)
2) Patch Steam
3) Create a Steam Account
4) Activate all 5 games (CD-Key)
5) Prepare Cache Files for all 5 games
6) Install all five games
7) Patch all five games

One annoying thing though (damn the pirates) is that in order to play any of the games, you must be 1)Online and 2) Have the latest patch. Yes, I know, a very tedious, and...shall we say...stupid process, but, for me at least, it's worth every second I took to install it (and I only played Portal and TF2).

Oh, btw, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer is out. Here are the reviews:

1) http://pc.ign.com/articles/827/827626p1.html
2) http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/neverwinternights2maskofthebetrayer/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=tabs&tag=tabs;reviews

It's still pretty low on my priority list, but I'll get it....eventually.

That's it for now, I think I have made-up for not posting for so long. Oh, check out the Monthly Game Release List for this November's awesome line-up. Gamespot and IGN call it one of the best years in gaming history. I'll update it as soon as I have time

Good Luck on your Quarterly Exams and, hopefully, we'll all enjoy Sem-Break. =)