Price: $19.99 ETA: 12/14/2010An assaulting force makes slow progress on the Cao Son Temple map.
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Source: http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/battlefieldbadcompany2vietname/video/6285745
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Rabbids Travel in Time is an explosive Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 11:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Our favourite titles from a rather fine year of interactive entertainment, starting with numbers 20-16.
Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without an array of list features to argue with and shout at. So here's our contribution to the great festive debate. Over the next four days we'll present the Guardian review team's twenty favourite games of 2010. They are, quite simply, the titles we played the most, and that gave us the most pleasure.
Feel free to heckle, contradict and mock ? that's the fun of it. Some of the more quirky favourites from the team have been ejected as part of the democratic process, but we'll list a selection of those on Christmas Eve.
For now, prepare your indignation ? or agreement ? for the first five games...
(Lionhead, Xbox 360, PC)
Once again Peter Molyneux promised the Earth and delivered... well, at least a continent. The third title in Lionhead's RPG adventure series takes place 50 years after Fable II and demands that you rescue an ailing kingdom then learn to govern it effectively. Our team loved the fusion of game styles, the engrossing plot and the sense of your actions and interactions having a profound effect on the world around you. Certainly though, it was let down by some technical issues and the rather uninspired environment design, while some gamers criticised the simplified structure. However, most of us agreed that Fable III represents an enthralling and often witty take on an over-subscribed genre. It also boasts a voice acting cast that stuffs in more stars than most Hollywood blockbusters. Not bad going for a British development.
(Bungie, Xbox 360)
This is a game about last stands ? it is the Spartans' final and ultimately doomed attempt to save Reach from the encroaching Covenant forces, and it is Bungie's closing Halo game before moving on to other projects. No wonder the story of valour and sacrifice is so epically drawn ? and no wonder some felt it failed to hit the stratospheric emotional heights it aimed at. It's difficult to pull off tragedy with giant guns and wisecracking uber men. Whatever its narrative failures however, Halo Reach does everything fans of the series wanted and more, providing a compelling range of weapons and vehicles, and an intelligent foe to aim them at. And with its multiplayer engine still firing on all cylinders, Reach, ultimately, is a Triumphalist 'best of', a cocksure culmination of the whole Halo experience, as envisioned by its departing creator. Halo ? and by logical extension, the Xbox 360 ? will never be the same again.
(Square Enix, PS3, Xbox 360)
Another Final Fantasy adventure, another band of plucky young super models out to save their world from an invading evil. As with every title since the epoch shattering seventh incarnation, it has split critical opinion with a mighty battle-axe. The Guardian referred to this mammoth cinematic odyssey as 'grandly and unapologetically linear'. Hardcore game site Destructoid preferred to label it, 'a pompous and masturbatory affair'. Most gamers will swivel between both viewpoints as they trek through the 50-hour campaign, often marvelling at the almost ridiculous beauty of the landscapes and set pieces. Indeed, wherever you stand on the whole 'adventure-game-as-travel-documentary' debate, and whatever you think of the smoothed down active battle system, only a churl would wish an end to this idiosyncratic series ? the Gran Turismo of RPGs.
(Remedy, Xbox 360)
Very specifically billed as a 'psychological action thriller', Alan Wake, was always a fascinating project ? an obsessive labour of love, teased out over several years by Remedy's comparatively tiny development team. The central concept, a horror author travelling to a remote town to combat writer's block ? only to end up combating an all-pervasive evil ? is the familiar stuff of a hundred survival horror yarns. But the intense plotting, interesting light-as-a-weapon mechanic, and endlessly self-doubting hero make this much more of a 'think piece'. It is never quite the revelation it thinks it is however, and following the much weirder Heavy Rain, it looked positively conventional at times. Alan Wake is a paradox then. Time Magazine called it the game of the year ? even the game's sternest detractors will understand why some love it so ardently.
(Treyach, PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
It was too conventional, too representative of the big money gaming mainstream, for some to stomach. But Black Ops is superlative blockbuster entertainment. The single-player campaign skilfully pickpockets twenty years of Cold War history, generating a conspiracy thriller that's as plausible as anything the movie biz could have chucked at us. And within it, there are marvellous set-pieces and well-tuned cultural references. The sequence where you start off on a murderous cruise down a Vietnamese river with Sympathy for the Devil kicking in over the speakers is approaching genius. Then you have the exhaustive multiplayer functionality, the zombies, the retro arcade game? There have been troubling problems with the PS3 version ? these need to be addressed. And as I wrote in my review, the game stretches the whole CoD premise to snapping point. One more over-blown, globetrotting, shoot-fest could bring the whole edifice crashing down.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/dec/19/top-20-games-2010
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Two monsters tear up a city.
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Source: http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/puzzle/eatthem/video/6285695
Get some of the backstory for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution.
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Source: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/warhammer40000dawnofwariiretribution/video/6285588
INTERSECTIONS INTERNATIONAL RECTIFIER INTERNATIONAL GAME TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES (IBM)
Price: $14.99 ETA: 12/10/2010SKYWORKS SOLUTIONS SILICON LABORATORIES SI INTERNATIONAL SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY
Commando joins forces with his Allies to hold off the waves of enemies! Defeat the enemies to raise funds to build more troops and defend yourself from the enemy assault!
Price: $34.99 ETA: 1/11/2011ACER ADOBE SYSTEMS ADVANCED SEMICONDUCTOR ENGINEERING ALLIANCE DATA SYSTEMS
Wii/DS/PS3/PS2/PSP; �29.99; cert 12+; Warner Bros
I was always a fan of EA's LOTR spin offs for maintaining the movie's epic feel within a decent, if linear, RTS. So I was keen to see how Warner Bros would fare with a very different approach.
Initially, the signs aren't too bad. Graphically, there's a lot to admire in Aragorn's Quest ? particularly the 3D world that fits the more soft-focus Shire locations best. Character likenesses are also good, albeit in that shrunken style we've come to expect from Wii games ? and music and voice acting are above average.
There are a couple of niggles, though. There's the camera perspective that continues to pan for a few seconds after your character has turned, creating an almost drunken feel to movement. And then there's the weedy crackle that emanates from the Wiimote when you pick up treasure or kill a significant foe, destroying most of the pleasure in doing so.
In gameplay terms, Aragorn's Quest plays like an arcade adventure with RPG pretensions. Most of the time you're pursuing the main storyline quest, which weaves its way between set-pieces from the movies. Pressing the A button reveals the path to your next keypoint where a cut-scene or battle usually awaits but there are also side quests you can follow for extra gold, weapons or occasional artifacts.
As an RPG, however, this is a seriously dumbed-down affair, with artifacts that can be picked up and viewed in your inventory but then have to be bought as if they were still in a shop. A bigger problem comes in the combat with an auto-targeting system that barely functions, meaning that most battles degenerate into frantic wiggling until a blow connects. It's a shame, because using the Wiimote for fighting and interaction and the Nunchuck for movement and blocking, promises far more finesse than it actually delivers.
However, the overriding problem with Aragorn's Quest is with the way it treats Tolkien's hallowed story. For a start, in retelling key events from Sam's perspective you'll soon find that character, mythology and occasionally logic are largely dispensed with. Take the Palantiri; in the book these are priceless orbs entrusted only to Sauron's most valuable allies, in the game, they're left around the forest floor like lost Satnavs.
Ultimately, it feels almost disrespectful that Tolkien's rich and evocative mythology should be reduced to collecting "Gandalf Tokens" and bowdlerising one of the 20th century's greatest mythologies. The pity is that that Aragorn's Quest works well enough to prove that LOTR does indeed have the makings of an epic RPG. Unfortunately, this isn't it.
? Game reviewed on Wii
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/dec/17/lord-of-the-rings-aragorns-quest
Dropbox has been around for so long and become so indispensable for so many people, that it's tough to remember that the spry little utility has been in beta all along. Not any longer -- the Dropbox team has announced that their baby has officially left the nursery, and version 1.0.10 is available for download right now. You may actually have to go to the site to get it -- Dropbox has never been known for auto-updating.Dropbox hits 1.0, gets lighter, faster, and adds selective syncing originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Price: $14.99 ETA: 12/10/2010AMERICA MOVIL AMKOR TECHNOLOGY AMPHENOL ANIXTER INTERNATIONAL
Source: http://www.freearcade.com/CircusCircus.flash/CircusCircus.html
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Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk set for induction for career credits including Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
For the last 13 years, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has inducted one gaming luminary into its Hall of Fame per year. For next year, the AIAS will break with tradition to add two new creators to its hallowed Hall: BioWare cofounders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk.
After getting their start creating medical software, Muzyka and Zeschuk established a reputation for BioWare as a talented developer of role-playing games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. Since then, the developer has produced a number of high-profile hits, including Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age. The company's current slate includes follow-up installments for each of those, with Star Wars: The Old Republic being the company's first entry into the massively multiplayer online world.
According to the AIAS, induction into the Hall of Fame is "bestowed on game creators whose efforts and contributions have expanded the scope and success of the interactive entertainment industry." Muzyka and Zeschuk will be inducted by Epic Games president Mike Capps at the 14th annual Interactive Achievement Awards, set for February 10 at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas. As in previous years, the ceremony will be part of the D.I.C.E. Summit.
Previous AIAS Hall of Fame inductees include Shigeru Miyamoto (Mario, Zelda), Sid Meier (Civilization), Will Wright (SimCity, the Sims), and Yu Suzuki (Shenmue, After Burner). A full list of Hall of Famers along with their contributions to the industry is available at the AIAS Web site.
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Source: http://www.gamespot.com/mac/rpg/baldursgate/news.html?sid=6285593
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WedBush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter says that the technical problems associated with the Windows PC and PS3 versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops will have "no impact" on the reputations of developer Treyarch or publisher Activision.
Pachter says that, despite the number of errors the game has had on the platforms and post-patch problems for some users, there will be no backlash from the community because Treyarch is responding quickly to the problems.
Treyarch released a patch this week to address the known issues with the game, but some users are complaining about connection issues still.
Yesterday Treyarch community manager Josh Olin issued a statement on the official site for the game, letting the community know that the company was aware of problems post-patch and working on a solution: Read More
Source: http://gamepolitics.com/2010/12/17/pachter-no-impact-treyarch-black-ops-technical-problems
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Check out the official trailer for A Space Shooter for Two Bucks!.
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Source: http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/aspaceshooterfortwobucks/video/6285582
INTERSECTIONS INTERNATIONAL RECTIFIER INTERNATIONAL GAME TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES (IBM)
Windows Phone 7 "Mango" may add HTML5, Silverlight support to WP7's browser originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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DST SYSTEMS DISCOVER FINANCIAL SERVICES DIODES INORATED DIEBOLD
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