A Week in the Wrath of the Lich King

By Neramaar

If you’re reading this, then you probably already know that today marks the one-week anniversary for the latest World of Warcraft expansion – Wrath of the Lich King. You also probably know that with its release, a plethora of new content and features were added to game, the level cap was raised to 80, and an entire new continent – Northrend – was added for players to quest and explore. What you might not know however, is how it all turned out. Read on to find out.

Viva le France!
Undoubtedly the question on the mind of most gamers at the minute is who was the first player to reach level 80? Well, wait no more – this achievement was completed by the French player Nymh, who made it from level 70 to 80 in only 27 hours. By using extensive knowledge gained in the WotLK Beta Test, and with the help of an out-of-party Priest to assist with weakening enemies Nymh achieved a gaming world record, and has my fullest congratulations. The following days saw many players reaching the elusive level 80 cap, and with any luck it shouldn’t be more than a few days before I too join their ranks, and face the many

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Spore PC - Game Review

Category: Game Review Posted on Sep 12, 2008 Add to Bookmark

"Spore is a bit like Lego. If you are the kind of person to buy a kit, assemble it and that's that - Spore will not be for you. If you like to assemble new things from lots of kits and apply them to different circumstances - then Spore may just be what you are looking for." –Luther Blissett (Australian Gamer Forums)

The Process of Evolution
Given the massive press coverage that Spore has received over the past few months you would literally have to be living in the primordial soup to not know at least a little about it by now. But for those of you not gifted with the abilities of a sentient being – Spore is the hottest new thing from developer Maxis, the guys who brought you Sim City and The Sims. Fortunately, this time around you won't be building cities or managing the pathetic lives of your digital idols – you'll be creating an entirely new species of creature, and helping it grow through all five key stages of it's evolution.

Soup's up!
Spore begins exactly as it should – with a chunk of meteor carrying an assortment of single-cell organisms crashing into an uninh

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Age of Conan - Game Review

Category: Game Review Posted on Sep 02, 2008 Add to Bookmark

When Age of Conan was first released I avoided it like the plague. I did this not because of the hefty price tag or the monthly subscription, nor the gigantic download or the fear of it being a bad game – I did it because I was scared of losing another 4 years of my life to a great MMO. You would need to have been living in a different solar system to avoid the hype of Age of Conan, and after hearing about the new combat system and amazing graphics I feared another WoW.

But alas, a few short months down the track and the temptation was too much to resist. I decided that it was time to put the fear of MMO Addiction behind me, and take a chance with a game that clearly deserves my attention. Thus it saddens me to say that the next few days of

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Conquer Online 2.0 - Game Review

Category: Game Review Posted on Jul 22, 2008 Add to Bookmark

"I know graphics don't make the game…but give me a break!"

Calm down, take a deep breath and count to ten. There, isn't that better? Now I know that Graphics shouldn't have anything to do with how enjoyable a game is to play and all that, but in this case I think they do. Now don't get angry again - just listen for a moment, and maybe I can show you a different perspective. As a developer you have the ability to choose whichever graphics scheme you would like. Some developers try to push the envelope and use cutting edge graphics to provide incredible eye-candy… and to secretly draw you away from how horrible the gameplay is (NeoSteam springs to mind here). Others deliberately use drawn or cartoon style graphics to lower the system requirements (Think World of Warcraft, or Bots). Then, you have the large variety of games like Ultima Online, Ragnarok Online and Runescape that deliberately use a dated graphics style, and subsequently make a hugely successful game by implementing fantastic gameplay.

My focus here is on the latter, as I firmly believe that it is time we moved on. Take Ragnarok for example, these graphics were hugely dated… even when the

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Requiem: Bloodymare - Game Review

Category: Game Review Posted on Jul 03, 2008 Add to Bookmark

“Where’s the screaming? There’s supposed to be screaming!”

I don’t usually like to start a review off on a bad note, it sets the wrong mood and promotes negative thinking. When I write a review I want you to read it and be neutral, I want you to get exited about the good aspects, and annoyed about the bad, but I don’t want you to carry a negative beginning throughout the entire read just because that’s the vibe you had when you started. With Requiem, I’m going to be making an exception. I’m going to start on a negative note because this particular note, changes the entire game: This is not a Survival Horror MMO. It’s not even a Horror MMO, or any variation at all. Yes, there are some gory animations, the Havok engine provides some nice Floppy Doll animations and blood splatter, there’s even a few mildly scary locations and features, but none of them come even close to making this game Horror.

Let me explain this a little better, the key to unlocking a good Horror game comes down to one thing: scaring your audience silly, and from my experience the best way to accomplish this is through good storytelling. You need to s

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SAGA - Game Review

Category: Game Review Posted on May 09, 2008 Add to Bookmark

"Patience is a virtue."

When the first thing I saw upon logging into SAGA was my Town Hall and Barracks, I knew that I was going to enjoy this game. As a lover of the RTS scene since I first inserted Starcraft into my N64, once thing that I'm always relieved to see when I start playing a new one is that they've stuck with the familiar base layout that I've come to know and love. But after a short tutorial and some practice quests I quickly realised that SAGA wasn't your run-of-the-mill RTS, it was much, much more.

After logging in I was first asked to create my Nation. In SAGA, your nation is equivalent to the 'class' that you'll be playing the game with. Similar to games like World of Warcraft, the nation that you select has a pre-designated faction. Selecting the nation of Light, Nature or Machines (Humans, Elves, Dwarfs and Giants) will have you as a member of The Order, the 'good guys'. Whereas if you selected Magic or War (Dark Elves and Orcs), you would find yourself in The Brotherhood, the 'baddies'. For me, it was Nature, and after selecting my banner style and base layout, I was ready to play.