Throne of Darkness Rules

I am an absolute nut when it comes to Diablo 2 and anything to do with samurai. So as you can imagine, the moment I found out about a Diablo-like game coming out based on a Japanese myth, I had to have it. And as with pretty much everything put out by Sierra, I was not disappointed. Throne of Darkness is not based on a real story, but follows a story line created by Click Entertainment. However it encompasses many of the details of larger then life hero’s as well as the danger and supernatural suspense that I have come … Continue reading Throne of Darkness Rules

Hoyle Kids Games Tops Family Fun

Hoyle Kid’s Games is a wonderful compilation of 15 of the most popular children’s games of all time. Included are Checkers, Go Fish, Tic Tac Toe, Snakes and Ladders, Hangman, Old Maid, War, and Chinese Checkers. There are also generic versions of Battleship, Tetris and Concentration. The contents screen has the appearance of a child’s room. Each game is represented by an appropriate symbol. War, for example, is represented by a toy tank on the bookshelf, and Bumper Cars is represented by a little car on the floor. Most of the games are beautifully rendered in full color graphics. Checkers, … Continue reading Hoyle Kids Games Tops Family Fun

The Incredible Machine is Ridiculous, Frustrating

The Incredible Machine: Even More Contraptions is incredible. It’s incredible how much of your time it can suck away. Like a really good book with really short chapters, you just keep telling yourself that you will complete one more quick contraption and then take a break. Hours later you emerge from your computer, bleary-eyed with your mind spinning and wondering why on earth you just had to break three more fish tanks just to get that darn Mel off to work. Breaking fish tanks is a common sub-goal of this game. What kind of sick mind thought that up? There … Continue reading The Incredible Machine is Ridiculous, Frustrating

Blue Shift is half-baked Half-Life

It’s not a special edition or add-on: Blue Shift is the official sequel to Half-Life, the awesome first-person shooter series from Sierra. But is it as good as the original? Is it even worth buying for $50? I guess the answers depend on how much you enjoyed the first one. Although in this sequel players do not necessarily have to know about the original story, it helps. In Blue Shift, players you’re no longer a competent scientist who probably makes enough money to drive home in a luxury car, but rather security guard, Barney Calhoun. Barney is a rather incompetent … Continue reading Blue Shift is half-baked Half-Life

Arcanum is Bookish, Hardcore Fun

I want to say that Arcanum is the "thinking person’s role-playing game" but shouldn’t every RPG be for thinking people? I also want to rave about how much I enjoyed playing the game, but I think I better first explain that Arcanum won’t appeal to everyone. Arcanum is a role-playing game in the purest since. Never have I encountered a title that caused me to really think about gameplay so deeply. Even my ruling favorite RPG series, Baldur’s Gate, did not rise to this level of complexity. This can be a good or a bad thing, depending on your personal … Continue reading Arcanum is Bookish, Hardcore Fun

Homeworld: Cataclysm is a Stunning Sequel

As a brief disclaimer, I do not play all that many RTS games (the exceptions being the ubiquitous Age of Kings/Conquerors and Starcraft) favoring instead more traditional strategy games. Consequently, I did not play the original Homeworld entry, and will focus solely on the second installment. Homeworld: Cataclysm (hereafter, H:C) has a rich storyline, well set out by the extensive manual. The focus of the game is the single player campaign, of which there is unfortunately only one. As a relatively minor member of a race attempting to rebuild their homeworld (the arrival at said homeworld being the basis for … Continue reading Homeworld: Cataclysm is a Stunning Sequel

Ground Control is a Stunning Depiction of Planetar

You have been contracted by the Crayven Corporation for a series of missions of the utmost importance. You will equip the squads of devastating war machines and cunning soldiers assigned to you and lead them to victory. You will descend upon the planet Krig 7-B and plow through the enemy forces occupying the planet’s surface. Your enemies, the Dawnies, are a ruthless and strongly religious group of well-trained warriors who will fight to the death for their land on Krig 7-B. It will take all of your resources and skills in order to gain control of the planet’s surface and … Continue reading Ground Control is a Stunning Depiction of Planetar

Opposing Force is a pleasant addition to a rocking game

Opposing Force is an expansion pack for the best game of 1998, Sierra’s Half-Life. This time you are Corporal Adrian Shephard, a member of an elite force sent into the Black Mesa Complex to kill Gordon Freeman, the star of Half-Life. In the fashion of all black ops, you don’t actually find all of this out right away. It’s interesting to note that there are at least 10 solid add-ons that you can get for free for use with your Half-Life game, including user-created scenarios, Team Fortress, the counterstrike module and a few others. Plus there must be 1,000 user-created … Continue reading Opposing Force is a pleasant addition to a rocking game

Y2K A.D. meet Y2K B.C.

Isn’t it amazing how much hype accompanied the arrival of the year 2000? The fact that a simple flip of the calendar page could cause such mass hysteria seems a little silly in retrospect, doesn’t it? As usual, all that was needed was a little perspective, something the real-time strategy game Pharaoh provides by the pyramid-full. With missions taking place from around 3200 to 1350 B.C., this game demonstrates that success involves thinking in the long-term. Sure, a worldwide computer meltdown could have caused problems, but that pales in comparison to trying to create and maintain an entire civilization. Egyptian … Continue reading Y2K A.D. meet Y2K B.C.

Homeworld will keep gamers’ fires burning

Sierra finally adds a new dimension to real time strategy games…the third dimension. Their new release, Homeworld takes strategy from the flat battlefield and shoots it into the darkness of space. Forget about battles for the high ground, in space, you have to defend and attack in all directions at once. The plot of the game involves colonists from a barren wasteland planet called Kharak. The colonist have recently uncovered a mysterious guidestone mentioning their race, and a single word…Hiigara…home. It seems that their past has turned out to be a lie, they thought they were from their barren world, … Continue reading Homeworld will keep gamers’ fires burning