4-Wheel Balloon Car

Make 4-wheeled, air-powered cars that jet across the floor. Race 'em. Use 'em to play games! For step-by-step instructions visit the Design Squad website. Here's what you need to make your 4-Wheel Balloon Car! Jet: Balloon Flexible straw Rubber band or tape Body (Select one):...
By: designsquad

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Rapid Racing iPad App

My name is Paul, I am 15 years old, and I made an app! I've been learning how to build games for the iPhone and iPad for about 3 years and just published my first iPad game to the AppStore. Check it out, its free! http://www.appstore.com/rapidracing My answers to the Make-To-Learn contest: What I ...
By: Gerome42

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Klaha

Masaki Haruna (春名真樹 Haruna Masaki^?), aka Klaha, is a Japanese singer-songwriter. He is best known as the third vocalist for visual kei rock band Malice Mizer. His first band was the new wave group Pride of Mind, active from 1992-1996. He first played with Malice Mizer in 2000, on their single, "Shiroi Hada ni Kuruu Ai to Kanashimi no Rondo", providing vocals, although he was credited as "fourth blood relative". He then provided vocals on their album, Bara no Seidou. It wasn't until at a concert in August that he became an official member. Sadly it wasn't for long, as only a year laterMalice Mizer went on hiatus.^[1] A year after Malice Mizer, Klaha started a solo career, but with a drastic change of style he performed pop music. After a live appearance in April 2004, Klaha's releases and performances stopped without explanation. In 2007 he stated that he would be returning that year, but nothing happened and no information has been given since.

Klaha
Birth name	Masaki Haruna
Also known as	Klaha
Born	May 3[citation needed]
Origin	Osaka, Japan
Genres	Progressive rock, dark wave,gothic rock, pop rock, new wave
Occupations	Musician, singer-songwriter
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1992–2004
Associated acts	Malice Mizer, Pride of Mind
Website	Official Website (expired)

 

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Sango Fighter

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500"] centered (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

Sango Fighter (武將爭霸) is a fighting game for DOS made by the Taiwanese Panda Entertainment and released in 1993. Set in the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, it is very similar to Street Fighter, but with historical context. Shareware developer and publisher Apogee Software was planning on licensing and releasing the game in the United States under the title Violent Vengeance, but the plans for the deal fell through. Instead, the game was distributed in English under its original title by a Taiwanese company named Accend, albeit without official permission from Panda Entertainment.

In 1995, Taiwan's fledgling 16-bit Super A'can game console saw release of a cartridge version of Sango Fighter, completely programmed inhouse by a single employee of Panda Entertainment. Being a rushed port from the PC version using a confusing and buggy Super A'can development kit, this version of the game suffered from stale, awkward gameplay and quite a few glitches.

Sango Fighter was also released for the Japanese PC-98 computer, in 1995. For this release, a portion of the game's story text was translated into Japanese. It was otherwise identical to the original DOS version, upon which its code was based. This adaptation was produced by Great Co., Ltd., and released by Imagineer.


The game was illegally ported to the Sega Master System console, with the name Sangokushi, and released only in South Korea. This port is one of the larger games in the console library, with 8 megabits of data size.

A sequel was released in 1995, Fighter in China 2, with more characters and more detailed graphics. Fighter in China 2 also featured a conquest mode in which the player attempted to unify the empire by invading other nations. In addition, the kingdom of Wu was added to the game.

There may have also been a planned, but unfinished 3D sequel by Panda Entertainment.^[2] However, the former owner of Panda's intellectual properties stated that no records of any such title exist.

"Sango" is a rough romanization of Three Kingdoms. Using pinyin, it would be romanized as "san guo".

While Sango Fighter was quite popular in Taiwan, a lawsuit by C&E Inc. (producers of the PC fighting game Super Fighter) stopped Panda Entertainment from distributing the game, let alone adapting it to other machines. Thus the game was never able to reach its full market potential.

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How to play Scrabble ?

Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a gameboard marked with a 15-by-15 grid. The words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary. Specified reference works (e.g., theOfficial Club and Tournament Word List, the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary) provide a list of permissible words.

The name Scrabble is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. in the United States and Canada; elsewhere, it is trademarked by Mattel. The game is sold in 121 countries and there are 29 different language versions. Approximately 150 million sets have been sold worldwide, and sets are found in roughly one-third of American homes

Game details

Further information: Scrabble letter distributions

A game of Scrabble in progress.

The game is played by two to four players on a square board with a 15-by-15 grid of cells (individually known as "squares"), each of which accommodates a single letter tile. In official club and tournament games, play is between two players or, occasionally, between two teams each of which collaborates on a single rack.^{[citation needed]}

The board is marked with "premium" squares, which multiply the number of points awarded: eight dark red "triple-word" squares, 17 pink "double-word" squares, of which one, the center square (H8), is marked with a star or other symbol; 12 dark blue "triple-letter" squares, and 24 light blue "double-letter" squares. In 2008, Hasbro changed the colors of the premium squares to orange for TW, red for DW, blue for DL, and green for TL. The original premium square color scheme is still the preferred scheme for Scrabble boards used in tournaments.

The name of the game spelled out in game tiles from the English-language version. Each tile is marked with their point value, with a blank tile—the game's equivalent of a wild card—played as the word's first letter. The blank tile is worth zero points.

In an English-language set the game contains 100 tiles, 98 of which are marked with a letter and a point value ranging from 1 to 10. The number of points of each lettered tile is based on the letter's frequency in standard English writing; commonly used letters such as E or O are worth one point, while less common letters score higher, with Q and Z each worth 10 points. The game also has two blank tiles that are unmarked and carry no point value. The blank tiles can be used as substitutes for any letter; once laid on the board, however, the choice is fixed. Other language sets use different letter set distributions with different point values.

Tiles are usually made of light wood - or plastics - are quadratic 19 x 19 mm and 4 mm thick and so slightly smaller than the fields. Only the rosewood tiles of a deluxe edition varies the width up to 2 mm for different letters. Variants for travelling have smaller tiles (e.g. 13 x 13 mm), such adopting debility of sight bigger ones. The capital letter ist printed on one side in black, plus to the right lower and smaller its value.

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Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (often referred to as War3 or WC3 or RoC) is a real time strategy video game released by Blizzard Entertainment on July 3, 2002 (US). It is the second sequel to Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, and it is the third game set in the Warcraft Universe. An expansion pack,The Frozen Throne, was released on July 1, 2003 (US).

Warcraft III contains four playable races:^[1] Humans and Orcs, which had previously appeared in Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, and the Night Elves and Undead, which were introduced to the Warcraft mythos in this installment.^[2] Warcraft III's single-player campaign is laid out similarly to that of StarCraft (another Blizzard game), being told through all four of the game's races in a progressive manner. In the expansion there are two additional races: the Draenei, a race of eredar who are cursed to be abominations, and the Naga, a race of vile serpents and other creatures that come from the depths of the sea. Multiplayer mode allows for play against other people, via the internet, instead of playing against computer-controlled characters as is done in the single-player custom game mode. Due to the dual storylines of the previous Warcraft games, the story can only be understood if using the proper storylines of one of the campaigns in the previous games, being the Orc Campaign on Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and the Human Campaigns on both the Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness and Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal.

The game proved to be a best seller and one of the most anticipated and popular computer game releases ever, with 4.5 million units shipped to retail stores and over one million units sold within a month.^[3] Warcraft III won many awards including "Game of the Year" from more than six different publications.

Gameplay

A game of Warcraft III takes place on a map of varying size, such as large plains and fields, with terrain features like rivers, mountains, seas, or cliffs. In Campaign mode, the map is initially covered with the Black Mask, an impenetrable covering.^[5] The Mask is removed from areas that have been explored, but those that are no longer within sight range of an allied unit or building are instead covered with the Fog of war; though terrain remains visible, changes such as enemy troop movements and building construction are unseen.^[5] During a game, players must establish settlements to gain resources, defend against other players, and train units to explore the map and attack computer controlled foes. There are three main resources that are managed in Warcraft III: gold, lumber, and food.^[6] The first two are required to construct units and buildings, while food restricts the maximum number of units the player may control at one time.^[7]

The game also introduces creeps, computer controlled units that are hostile to all players.^[8] Creeps guard key areas such as gold mines or neutral buildings and, when killed, provide experience points, gold, and special items to a player's hero.^[8] Warcraft III also introduced a day/night cycle to the series.^[9] Besides having advantages or disadvantages for certain races, at night most creeps fall asleep, making nighttime scouting safer; however, the line of sight for most units is also reduced. Other minor changes to the gameplay were due to the 3D terrain. For instance, units on a cliff have an attack bonus when attacking units at lower elevations.^[2]

In previous Warcraft games, there were only two playable races, Orcs and Humans. Barring cosmetic changes, most Orc units were identical to their Human counterparts. In Warcraft III, the Night Elves and the Undead are added as playable races.^[1] Additionally, as in StarCraft, each race has a unique set of units, structures, technologies, and base-building methodology.

In addition, Warcraft III adds powerful new units called heroes. For each enemy unit killed, a hero will gain experience points, which allow the hero to level-up to a maximum level of 10. Progressing up a level increases the heroes attributes and also allows the hero to gain new spell options (bringing role-playing video game elements to the series).^[10] Certain hero abilities can apply beneficial auras to allied units. All heroes can equip items to increase skills, defense, and other abilities. At level six, the hero can obtain an "ultimate" skill that is more powerful than the three other spells that the hero possesses. Heroes can also utilize the various natural resources found throughout the map, such as controllable non-player characters, and markets in which the hero can purchase usable items.^[11] Often, hero units become the deciding factor in determining a winner.

Campaign

A screenshot of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos campaign.

Warcraft III's campaign mode is broken up into five campaigns (Including an optional prologue), each featuring a different race which the player controls (2 Orc campaigns, 1 Human, 1 Undead, and 1 Night Elf). Each campaign is itself divided into chapters. Unlike previous Blizzard titles, such as Warcraft II or StarCraft, players are not directed to mission briefings in which plot exposition occurs and objectives are announced; rather, Warcraft III uses a system of "seamless quests."^[12] Some plot development happens in an occasional cinematic, but most occurs in-game with cutscenes. Objectives, known as quests, are revealed to the player during the progress of the map. Main quests are those that the player must complete to proceed to the next chapter, but there are also optional quests which are not initially revealed, but can be discovered and completed alongside the main objectives.

Through each race's campaign, the player retains control of one or more heroes, which slowly grow in experience as the levels progress. This experience is carried over to subsequent missions, allowing the hero to grow throughout the course of the campaign.

While different in terms of storyline and precise gameplay, all of the different races' campaigns are structured similarly. Each begins with a level involving simple mechanics to introduce the player to the race and the basic elements of their hero and units. After one or two such levels the player's first "building mission" occurs, requiring them to build and maintain a base while competing with one or more enemy forces. The only campaign that breaks this pattern is the Night Elf campaign, whose first mission involves building a limited base. The last level of each race's campaign is an "epic battle" which means that the player has to strike down a large number of enemy foes and finally destroy their main base.

Multiplayer

While campaign games can have many different objectives, the sole objective in multiplayer games is to destroy all the buildings of the opposition. In default melee matches, players can pick their own heroes, and losing one will not end the game. To make the game proceed more quickly, by default the map is covered in fog of war instead of the Black Mask.^[2] Warcraft III, like Blizzard's previous title StarCraft, allows for single and multiplayer replays to be recorded and viewed, allowing a game to be played at slower and faster speeds and viewed from the perspective of all players.^[13] Like all previous Blizzard titles since Diablo, Warcraft III uses the Battle.net multiplayer network. Players can create free accounts in regional "gateways," which helps reduce lag; these are Azeroth (U.S. East), Lordaeron (U.S. West), Northrend (Europe), and Kalimdor (Asia).^[14] Unlike previous Battle.net-enabled games, Warcraft III introduced anonymousmatchmaking, automatically pairing players for games based on their skill level and game type preferences, preventing players from cheating and inflating their records artificially.^[15] If players want to play with a friend in ranked matches, Warcraft III offers "Arranged Team Games", where a team joins a lobby and Battle.net will search for another team; as with anonymous matchmaking, the enemy team is not known beforehand.^[15] Players can also host custom games, using maps either created in the Warcraft III World Editor, or the default multiplayer scenarios. The game also offers Friends Lists and Channels for chatting, where players can create custom channels or join Blizzard-approved ones.^[16] Warcraft III also allows players to band together to form "clans", which can participate in tournaments or offer a recreational aspect to Warcraft III. Global scores and standings in matchmaking games are kept on a "ladder".^[17] These rankings can be checked online without the need of the game.

Due to the version 1.24 patch, many third-party programs have been rendered unusable. Several third-party programs that reveal the entire map, commonly known as maphacks, have been released for the update. It also disabled collided maps, which would make modified custom maps appear to be the same as the original. Another effect of the patch, which is not included in the release notes, is that custom maps with large filenames will not appear in the game. The limit is believed to be 20 characters, but this has not yet been tested.^[18] This patch also rendered many custom maps unplayable due to custom map scripts. Even some versions of the famous Defense of the Ancients were no longer functioning.

Synopsis

Setting

Warcraft III takes place in the fictional world of Azeroth. Several years before the events of the games, a demon army known as the Burning Legion intent on Azeroth's destruction corrupted a race called the Orcs, and sent them through a portal to attack Azeroth. After many years of fighting, the Orcs were defeated by a coalition of humans, dwarves and elves known as the Alliance; the surviving combatants were herded into internment camps, where they seemed to lose their lust for battle. With no common enemy, a period of peace followed, but the Alliance began to fracture. The events of Warcraft III occur after a timeskip from Warcraft II. This period was originally intended to have been documented in Warcraft Adventures, but that game was canceled in mid-development.^[19]

Plot

The game's plot is told entirely through cinematics and cutscenes, with additional information found in the Warcraft III manual. The campaign itself is divided into five sections, with the first acting as a tutorial, and the others telling the story from the point of view of the humans of Lordaeron, the Undead Scourge, the Orcs, and the Night Elves, in that order.

The game opens with the Orc leader, Thrall, waking from a nightmare warning him of the return of the Burning Legion.^[20] After a brief encounter with a man who is known only as "the Prophet", and, fearing that his dream was more of a vision than a nightmare, he leads his forces in an exodus from Lordaeron to the forgotten lands of Kalimdor.^[21]

Meanwhile, the Paladin and prince of Lordaeron, Arthas, defends the village of Strahnbrad from demon-controlled Orcs.^[22] He then joins Archmage Jaina Proudmoore, who aids him in investigating a rapidly-spreading plague, which kills and turns human victims into the undead. Arthas kills the plague's originator, Kel'Thuzad, and then purges the infected city of Stratholme. Jaina parts ways with him, unwilling to commit genocide, or even watch him do so. The Prophet, after previously trying to convince other human leaders to flee west, begs Jaina to go to Kalimdor as well.^[23] Arthas pursues the dreadlord, Mal'Ganis, who was the leader behind Kel'Thuzad, to the icy continent of Northrend, where he helps his old friend, Muradin Bronzebeard, find a powerful sword called Frostmourne. Meanwhile, Arthas begins to lose his sanity after hearing his forces been recalled by the Emissary, burning his ships to prevent retreat, even when given an order to leave. Fortunately, Arthas and Muradin find Frostmourne. Muradin, however, learns that the sword is cursed.^[24] Arthas disregards the warning, and offers his soul to gain the sword. By doing so, Muradin was struck down by a shard of ice when Frostmourne is released, and is presumably killed. Arthas supposedly kills Mal'Ganis, and abandons his men in the frozen north as his soul is stolen by the blade, which was later revealed to be forged by the Lich King. Some time later, Arthas returns to Lordaeron and kills his father, King Terenas.

Now a Death Knight, Arthas meets with the leader of the dreadlords, Tichondrius, who assigns him a series of "tests". Arthas first exhumes the remains of Kel'Thuzad, contains it in a magic urn of the ashes of his father, which was protected by Uther the Lightbringer, head paladin of The Order of the Silver Hand as well as Arthas' former mentor and close friend. Arthas kills him too, then sets off to Quel'thalas, kingdom of the high elves. He then later attacks the gates and destroys their capital of Silvermoon. He kills Sylvanas Windrunner, the Ranger General of Silvermoon (only to resurrect her as a banshee), corrupts their sacred Sunwell and revives Kel'Thuzad as a Lich. The Lich informs him of the Burning Legion; a vast demonic army who are coming to consume the world. Kel'Thuzad's true master is the Lich King, who was created to aid the Legion with his Undead Scourge, but in truth he wishes for the Legion to be destroyed. Arthas and Kel'Thuzad open a dimensional portal and summon the demon Archimonde and the Burning Legion, who begins his purging of Lordaeron with the destruction of Dalaran. Arthas and Kel'Thuzad were cast aside by Archimonde, and Kel'Thuzad reveals to Arthas the Lich King has already foreseen it and is planning to overthrow the Burning Legion.

Thrall the warchief arrives on Kalimdor, meeting Cairne Bloodhoof and the tauren, and clashes with a human expedition on the way to find an Oracle. Meanwhile, the Warsong Clan are left behind in Ashenvale to build a permanent settlement, but anger the Night Elves and their demigod Cenarius by cutting down the forests for resources. To defeat them, the Warsong leader Grom Hellscream drinks from a corrupted fountain of health contaminated with the blood of the Legion's pit lord commander Mannoroth, successfully killing Cenarius, but binding his clan to the Legion's control. Thrall manages to reach the Oracle, in fact the Prophet, who tells him of Grom's doings. Following the Prophet's directions, Thrall and Jaina join forces to purge both Grom and the world of demonic influence. They succeed in capturing Grom and healing him of Mannoroth's corruption. Thrall and Grom begin to hunt Mannoroth and Grom kills him, dying in the process, but in doing so freeing the orcs from the demonic control of Mannoroth at last. Thrall tells the lifeless Grom that he freed us all and lets out a pierce roar alerting Jaina and Cairne to Grom's death.

Tyrande Whisperwind, leader of the Night Elves, is outraged to find the Humans and Orcs violating the forests and blames them for Cenarius' death, so she initially vows to destroy both. However, she soon finds out that the Burning Legion has arrived on Kalimdor. In order to oppose the Burning Legion, Tyrande reawakens the sleeping Elf Druids, starting with her lover, Malfurion Stormrage, and frees his brother Illidan Stormrage from prison, against Malfurion's will. Illidan meets Arthas, who tells him about the powerful "Skull of Gul'dan". Consuming the Skull and becoming a demon-elf hybrid, Illidan uses its power to kill Tichondrius. He is however banished from the forest by his brother as he is now part demon. Meanwhile, the Prophet summons Thrall, Jaina, Tyrande and Malfurion, and reveals that he used to be Medivh, the Last Guardian and the betrayer from Warcraft: Orcs & Humans... much to Tyrande's shock. The Humans, Orcs, and Night Elves form a reluctant alliance to spring a trap on the Burning Legion, and delay it long enough for many ancestral spirits to destroy Archimonde at Mount Hyjal. Peace once again comes to Kalimdor as the Burning Legion's forces wither away in defeat.


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Diablo III

Diablo III is an action role-playing video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the third installment in the Diablo franchisethat features elements of the dungeon crawl and hack and slash genres.

Diablo III was released in North America, Latin America, Europe, South Korea, and Taiwan on May 15, 2012, and in Russia on June 7, 2012.Before its release, the game broke several presale records and became the most pre-ordered PC game to date on Amazon.com. Diablo IIIsubsequently set a new record for fastest-selling PC game by selling over 3.5 million copies in the first 24 hours of its release. It received generally positive reviews from critics, although its digital rights management that required an internet connection at all times was criticized.

Players have five character classes available; the Witch Doctor, Barbarian, Wizard, Monk and Demon Hunter. New features include an online auction house, which allows players to trade virtual items with in-game gold or real life money. Artisans that craft materials gathered by the player to create new items.

Plot

The game takes place in Sanctuary, the dark fantasy world of the Diablo series, twenty years after the events of Diablo II. Deckard Cain and his niece Leah are in the Tristram Cathedral investigating ancient texts regarding an ominous prophecy. Suddenly, a mysterious star falling from the sky strikes the Cathedral, creating a deep crater into which Deckard Cain disappears.

The player character (PC) arrives in New Tristram to investigate the fallen star. The PC rescues Cain upon Leah's request and discovers that the fallen object is actually a person. The stranger has no memories except that he lost his sword, which was shattered into three pieces. The PC is tasked with retrieving the pieces, a quest during which knowledge of an ancient line of humans known as the Nephalem is discovered. It is gradually revealed that this line, the result of the union of Diablo's angelic and demonic races, has not died out as first believed, and that the PC is in fact a Nephalem as well. A dark coven run by the witch Maghda attempts to beat the PC to the sword shards; once all three have been collected, Maghda seizes them and kidnaps Cain to force him to repair the sword for her own ends. However, with an uncontrolled display of power, Leah forces Maghda to flee, and the witch kidnaps the stranger instead. Cain, dying from Maghda's torture, uses the last of his strength to repair the sword and instructs the PC to return it to the stranger. The PC rescues the stranger and returns his sword, causing him to regain his memories. The strange r is the fallen angel Tyrael. Disgusted with his fellow angels' unwillingness to protect humanity from the forces of Hell, Tyrael cast aside his divinity to become a mortal and warn Sanctuary about the arrival of the demon lords Belial (Lord of Lies) and Azmodan (Lord of Sin).

To avenge Cain's death, the PC tracks Maghda to the city of Caldeum, which is controlled by her master, Belial. The PC kills Maghda, and rescues Leah's mother, Adria. Adria tells Tyrael and the PC that the key to stopping the demons is the Black Soulstone, which can trap the souls of the seven Lords of Hell and destroy them forever. In order to obtain the Black Soulstone, the PC resurrects the mad Horadrim, Zoltun Kulle. Kulle reveals its hiding place and completes the unfinished Soulstone, but is killed by the PC after he attempts to steal it for himself. The PC kills Belial and traps his soul within the Black Soulstone, freeing Caldeum. As Leah studies in Caldeum's library to find more answers about the Black Soulstone and Azmodan, she receives a vision from Azmodan, who tells her that he is sending an army from the ruins of Mount Arreat to take the Black Soulstone for himself.

Tyrael, Adria, Leah and the PC journey to Bastion's Keep, the only line of defense between Azmodan's forces and the rest of Sanctuary. While the others stay behind to protect the Black Soulstone, the PC pushes out from the keep into Mount Arreat. The PC kills Azmodan and traps his soul in the Black Soulstone. However, Adria betrays the PC and takes the Black Soulstone with the seven Demon Lords' souls inside. She reveals that she has been Diablo's agent from the beginning, and that Leah's father is the Dark Wanderer, who conceived her while being possessed by Diablo, making her the perfect vessel for the demon's physical form. Using Leah as a sacrifice, Adria resurrects Diablo. Having the souls of all the Lords of Hell within him, Diablo becomes the "Prime Evil," the most powerful demon in existence. He begins an assault on the High Heavens, the defending angels being no match for him.

Tyrael and the PC follow Diablo to the High Heavens while it is under attack. The defending angels warn the PC that Diablo is attempting to reach the Crystal Arch, which is the source of all of the angels' power. To prevent Diablo from corrupting the Crystal Arch and completing his victory over the High Heavens, the PC confronts and defeats him. With Diablo's physical manifestation destroyed, the Black Soulstone is shown falling from the High Heavens, apparently still intact. After the battle, Tyrael decides to rejoin the High Heavens but remains a mortal, dedicated to building a permanent alliance between angels and humans.

Gameplay

Gameplay is similar to that of previous titles in the Diablo franchise. The game is classified as a tactical action game that is played primarily using the mouse to direct the character with supplementary commands provided through the keyboard.

Diablo III's inventory and HUD retain a feel similar to that found in earlier games in the series, including a viewpoint reminiscent of the isometric view of Diablo III's predecessors. The inventory has sixty slots for items. Armor and weaponry each occupy two slots and all other items each occupy one slot. It can also be expanded to include details about the character's attributes.

The proprietary engine incorporates Blizzard's custom in-house physics, a change from the original usage of Havok's physics engine,^[7] and featuresdestructible environments with an in-game damage effect. The developers sought to make the game run on a wide range of systems without requiringDirectX 10.^[8] Diablo III uses a custom 3D game engine in order to present an overhead view to the player, in a somewhat similar way to the isometricview used in previous games in the series. Enemies utilize the 3D environment as well, in ways such as crawling up the side of a wall from the depths into the combat area.

Diablo III's skills window depicting the abilities of the wizard class.

As in Diablo II, multiplayer games are possible using Blizzard's Battle.net service, with many of the new features developed for StarCraft II also available in Diablo III.^[8] Players will be able to drop in and out of sessions of co-operative play with others. Unlike its predecessor, Diablo III requires players to be connected to the internet constantly due to their DRM policy, even for single-player games.


An enhanced quest system, a random level generator, and a random encounter generator are used in order to ensure the game provides different experiences when replayed.


Unlike previous iterations, gold can be picked up merely by touching it, or coming within range, adjusted by gear, rather than having to manually pick it up.^[15] One of the new features intended to speed gameplay is that health orbs drop from enemies, replacing the need to have a potion bar, which itself is replaced by a skill bar that allows a player to assign quick bar buttons to skills and spells; previously, players could only assign two skills (one for each mouse button) and had to swap skills with the keyboard or mousewheel. Players can still assign specific attacks to mouse buttons.


Skill runes, another new feature, are skill modifiers that are unlocked as the player levels up. Unlike the socketable runes in Diablo II, skill runes are not items but instead provide options for enhancing skills, often completely changing the gameplay of each skill.^[16] For example, one skill rune for the Wizard's meteor ability reduces its arcane power cost, while another turns the meteor to ice, causing cold damage rather than fire.

Hardcore mode

As in Diablo II, Diablo III gives players the choice to make hardcore characters. Players are required to first level up a regular character to level 10 before they have the option to create new Hardcore characters.^[18] Hardcore characters cannot be resurrected; instead they become permanently unplayable if they are killed. They also do not have access to the real-world money auction house.^[19] Hardcore characters are separately ranked; their names are highlighted with a different color (red); and they can only form teams with other hardcore characters. After dying, the ghost of a hardcore character can still chat, the name still shows up in rankings, but the character cannot return to the game.

Artisans

Artisans are NPCs who sell and craft. Two types of artisans can be introduced by completing a quest for each: Haedrig Eamon the Blacksmith and Covetous Shen the Jeweler. The previously announced Mystic Artisan has been pulled, possibly to be released later on.^[21] Artisans create items using materials the player can gather by scrapping acquired items and reducing them to their component parts. These materials are used to create items which will have random bonuses. Unlike Diablo II, rare and magic items can be enhanced, not just basic weaponry and armor. Crafting can also be used to train and improve the skills of the artisans rather than create new items. When artisans gain new levels, their shop reflects their higher skill level. The process of salvaging items into materials also makes inventory management easier. Blizzard stated that this crafting system was designed so that it would not slow down the pace of the game.

Followers

Followers are NPC allies that can accompany the player throughout the game world. There are three followers in Diablo III: Kormac the Templar, Lyndon the Scoundrel and Eirena the Enchantress, who each possess their own skills and background.As followers fight alongside the player, they gain new experience, skills, and equipment as they level up. Only one follower accompanies the player at a time, creating a gameplay strategy decision. Originally, followers were only going to appear in normal, single-player mode. However, Jay Wilson stated at BlizzCon 2011 that followers would continue to be usable in later difficulty levels.^[24] Followers will not appear in co-op games.

Auction house

How the Diablo III auction house looked in the early stages of development

On August 1, 2011, it was reported that Diablo III will feature two types of auction houses; one where players spend in-game gold and another where players can buy or sell virtual items for real-world money. The real-money auction house will not be available in Hardcore mode.


Blizzard has stated that nearly everything that drops on the ground, including gold, can be traded with other players directly or through the auction house system. Aside from certain bound on account items, which include items for the secret level^{[clarification needed (What secret level and what "item for the secret level"?)]}, there will be very few items that will be bound to a particular character and therefore un-tradable.


In order to get rated in South Korea, Blizzard had to drop the real-money auction house from the Korean release of the game as the auction house violated Korean anti-gambling laws.


In the gold-based auction house, a flat fee of 15 percent will be taken from the final sale price of an auction. The real-money auction house fees will be US$1, €1 or £1 (or equivalent) for equipment (weapons and armor) and 15 percent fee for commodity auctions, which include things like crafting materials, blacksmith and jewel crafting plans, and gold exchange. There is an additional 15 percent "cashing-out" fee from proceeds gained selling items in the real-money auction house.


While the gold-based auction house is available to any player regardless of which region they play in, the real-money auction is restricted to players on their home region. If they use the global play function to play in a different region, they will not be able to access the real-money auction house. The real money auction house was opened on June 12, 2012 (June 15 in the Americas).

PvP combat

Player versus player combat (PvP) has not yet been implemented in Diablo III, but has been announced. On March 9, 2012, Blizzard announced that PvP was delayed, and that they will enable it in a future patch.^[31] Lead designer Jay Wilson said in a post on Battle.net that the PvP Arena system will arrive in a post-release patch. "As we're counting down the days until we're ready to announce a release date for Diablo III, we've come to realize that the PvP game and systems aren't yet living up to our standards," he said. Blizzard said the PvP patch will add multiple Arena maps with themed locations and layouts, PvP-centric achievements, and a quick and easy matchmaking system. "We'll also be adding a personal progression system that will reward you for successfully bashing in the other team's skulls", Wilson added.


Players will participate in PvP by choosing from their existing characters, with access to all of the gear and skill they have gathered from playing the game in single-player or cooperative mode. There will be both ranked and unranked gametypes. When participating in ranked games, players will earn points for advancement based on the number of kills, accomplished objectives, and victories they acquire throughout matches. The points earned lead to achievements, titles, and other rewards.

Character classes

The five character classes of Diablo III. From left to right: Wizard, Witch Doctor, Demon Hunter, Barbarian, and Monk

Character creation screen with the Demon Hunter selected

There are five available character classes. In the previous two games, each class had a fixed gender, but in Diablo III players may choose the gender they would like to play.

• The Witch Doctor is a new character reminiscent of the Diablo II necromancer but with skills more traditionally associated with shamanism andvoodoo culture. The witch doctor has the ability to summon monsters, cast curses, harvest souls, and hurl poisons and explosives at his enemies. To power spells the Witch Doctor uses Mana, which regenerates slowly.


• The Barbarian has a variety of revamped skills at its disposal based on incredible physical prowess. The barbarian is able to whirlwind through crowds, cleave through swarms, leap across crags, crush opponents upon landing, and grapple-snap enemies into melee range. The resource used by the barbarian is fury, which is generated through getting attacked by enemies, attacking enemies and through certain abilities. Fury is used for certain strong abilities and degenerates over time.
  


• The Wizard is a version of the sorceress from Diablo II or the sorcerer from Diablo. The Wizard's abilities range from shooting lightning, fire and ice at their enemies to slowing time and teleporting past enemies and through walls. Wizards fuels their spells with arcane power, which is a fast regenerating power source.
  


• The Monk is a melee attacker, using martial arts to cripple foes, resist damage, deflect projectiles, attack with blinding speed, and land explosive killing blows. Monk gameplay combines the melee elements of Diablo II's assassin class with the "holy warrior" role of the paladin. Blizzard has stated that the monk is not related in any way to the monk class from the Sierra Entertainment-made Diablo: Hellfire expansion. The monk is fueled by spirit, which has defensive purposes and is slowly generated through attacking, though it does not degenerate.


• The Demon Hunter combines elements of Diablo II's amazon and assassin classes. Demon hunters use crossbows as their main weapon and can also throw small bombs at enemies. The demon hunter is fueled by both discipline and hatred: Hatred is a fast regenerating resource that is used for attacks, while discipline is a slow regenerating resource used for defensive abilities.
  

The Archivist class was presented on April 1, 2009, following in Blizzard's April Fool's Day joke tradition.


The non-inclusion of several of the classic Diablo II classes has been greeted with protest by some fans.


Source

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

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Avadon: The Black Fortress

If you don't have any experience with Spiderweb's previous games, your first moments with Avadon are likely to come as a shock. The single-player-only game could almost have been developed in 1989. Crude isometric visuals and paltry sound recall the 286 era. By 2011 standards, the game is ugly. Characters and monsters are soft-focus multicolored blobs, and you can't zoom the camera in to get a better look. Dungeon furniture and architecture mainly consist of standard chests and wardrobes like the set dressing in summer stock theater. Outdoor locales are loaded with symmetrically arranged cacti, rocks, and other terrain features that make the landscape look surreal. Only some of the textures stand up to scrutiny: the gravel roads and stone walls look pretty good. There are virtually no audio effects. The game has no music or voice acting, and monsters share a handful of attack noises. Oddly, a near-constant wind seems to blow whether you're indoors or out.

Game options are sparse in the beginning. You start off with no real character customization options. You get to type in a name and pick from four set Dungeons & Dragons-inspired classes that touch on the standard fighter, wizard, cleric, and thief archetypes. The only difference is their names: the warrior is called a blademaster, the wizard a sorceress, the cleric a shaman, and the thief a shadowwalker. There are some variances, most notably in the way that the classes veer off into slightly innovative directions. Still, there is no way to roll up a custom character, so you're stuck with a quick choice before delving into the action.

Thankfully, Avadon has a lot of appeal beyond this admittedly off-putting surface. Some areas feature a considerable amount of detail when it comes to furnishings, with elaborate layouts in bedrooms, libraries, and other locales. You're given just enough for your mind's eye to work with, so suspending disbelief isn't a problem. Performance is also very good, making this a good choice for older machines or even netbooks. Some user interface flaws get in the way, however. Levels are typically massive and confusing, which isn't helped by the hit-and-miss minimap. Quests aren't noted on the minimap, and neither are some key characters and locales. Even vital spots like stairs up and down aren't given icons, which can be incredibly annoying given the mazelike nature of many of the levels. The developer has at least posted more-comprehensive maps in the official forums on its website, but they're hardly an acceptable substitute.


Redbeard is good, bad, or some blend of both.
Despite the flaws, you can't help but be drawn in once you go deeper into the game. Even though the graphics don't do a complete job of immersing you in this fantasy world, textual blurbs bridge the gap between what you see and what you're supposed to be envisioning. They tell a story and bring situations to life without being overly wordy. The generic medieval fantasy setting and plot are somewhat predictable, though. Events center on a fantasy land of magic and monsters dominated by the Midlands Pact, an alliance of five nations dedicated to protecting all that is good from evildoers. The heart of the Midlands Pact is Avadon, a fortress ruled by the ominous Redbeard, a hero who might be going a little too far when it comes to guarding the realm from the bad guys. You play as a newcomer to Avadon, one of Redbeard's warriors dedicated to helping the big guy keep the peace. The story keeps you interested, even though it offers few surprises--or at least few surprises that you don't see coming a mile away

Quests mix inventive tasks like playing PR man to an irritable dragon with typical go-fetch and locate-missing-people busywork. There is a lot of combat during these assignments, although you're never overwhelmed. Battles are not so numerous that you feel numbed by monotony. They actually fly past pretty quickly, with characters and foes moving as though they're under the influence of a haste spell augmented with liberal shots of Red Bull. Fighting is handled from a tactical perspective, in a way that hasn't changed much since the aforementioned Gold Box games of two decades ago. Whenever you spot a foe, the real-time exploration mode switches to a turn-based perspective, and grids pop up on the screen to show you how and where characters can move. It's an easy-to-learn and intuitive system for anyone with a background in RPGs. The main drawback is a lack of monster variety. There are a fair number of creeps in the game, drawn from fantasy archetypes such as giant spiders, lizards, wizards, orcs, and the like, but they mainly attack in straightforward melee styles. You don't need to get too fancy with combat strategies, save in some of the boss battles, which can be brutal on the regular difficulty and above. The visuals aren't detailed enough to make monsters distinctive, either, so you're often facing off against blurry groupings of pixels that need to be identified by the text blurbs beneath them.


There aren't any big surprises here, especially if you pay attention to what's going on with the average folks living in the Midlands Pact.
Character development also offers a fair number of options. Experience points are earned for combat and other tasks and are used to level up party members. Skill points are doled out for each level and are then spent on buffing core stats as well as special class abilities that boost attacks, defenses, spells, and so forth. Basically, this gives you extra goodies to employ during battle with the use of a vitality pool that sits alongside your hit points. These features lend an added dimension to combat strategies with souped-up attacks and healing spells or buffs to core functions like hit-point regeneration and the percentage chance to inflict a critical hit. There isn't anything dramatic or new here in the character skill trees, although there are enough options to give you the sense of growing and customizing your party.

If you crave up-to-the-minute 3D visuals and bombastic sound, Avadon: The Black Fortress is not for you. But if you want to immerse yourself in a fantasy adventure and don't mind letting your imagination take over where the graphics end, this RPG can be involving and satisfying. You might get the feeling that you've played this game before, but in this case, that is sort of the point, and one of the big positives to this retro treat.

Men of War: Vietnam

At least Men of War: Vietnam is honest up front. The very first mission tosses you into the deep end without any life preservers. Denied even the benefit of a brief tutorial or some tips on how to handle the first few enemy encounters, you're thrown into the midst of a battle between the US and a small group of Russian advisors and Vietcong soldiers. A Huey incinerates your convoy in the scripted opening seconds and then returns to obliterate the paltry four survivors in your squad within moments. Either you get your guys off the road and under cover in less time than it took you to read the start of this paragraph, or everybody dies. It's an abysmal introduction. It's hard to imagine anyone new to the Men of War series sticking around for very long after this greeting. Even series veterans can't help but be taken aback by how brutally the game begins. Playing on easy helps a bit by reducing enemy numbers, but the game remains incredibly punishing.

The two-part campaign that sees the first five missions focusing on Russian and Vietcong troops and the second five missions swinging over to the US is unforgiving all the way through. You go into missions with tiny squads ranging from just four guys to around a dozen or so, and you have to fight and/or sneak your way through huge maps crawling with countless enemy patrols and dotted with umpteen goals. The playing field is so tilted against you that you're at risk of it falling on your head at any moment. Enemies can spot you from long distances, hear you even when you're firing silenced rounds, and shoot you with unerring accuracy even when you're hunkered down behind brush. The entire squad can be wiped out in mere moments, at almost any time. You need to creep forward very cautiously, experiment with a lot of trial and error, and save every time you do anything even remotely good. Kill a bad guy? Save. Find a great cover spot? Save. And so on. At least the game helps out by autosaving at smart, frequent intervals.

There are a couple of saving graces. Mission maps are extremely detailed and come with multiple options to get past every enemy troop position. Granted, sometimes none of them are pleasant, but at least you have many choices, ranging from open assaults to flanking maneuvers to firing locations and weapon selection. Enemy artificial intelligence is lacking, too, though at least the stupidity of your foes makes it easier to complete scenarios against the incredible odds. Foes typically respond to attacks by going back to standard patrol routes, oblivious to the corpses of their comrades and the burning wreckage around them, or by walking mindlessly into the jungle until your lads shoot them to bits. When you're beaten, you're beaten through sheer force of numbers or by superior enemy positions like bunkers, but never from being outsmarted.


Zoom in close for all the glorious battle detail, like your men being overrun enemies.
Unfortunately, your own troops aren't very smart, either. They often switch weapons for no apparent reason in mid-battle and ignore enemies gleefully murdering the whole squad from a few feet away. Maybe it's the cover itself, or maybe it's dumb soldiers not standing in the right spots, but your boys often seem to think they're hidden when they're exposed enough to take a bullet to the head. Targeting isn't very accurate, unless you micromanage troops with direct control, which is hard to do in the middle of a big scrap. You can order your squad to assault a lone VC hiding behind a truck, for example, and watch in horror as your lads line up behind the bumper and fill it full of holes…while your enemy pops out of cover and slaughters everyone.

Special abilities and weapons offer some chance at survival. There is something of a role-playing flavor here with named squadmates who come equipped with gear and combat skills. At times, the game resembles the Commandos series. Troops with silenced SMGs, sniper rifles, and big M60s provide you with a shot at whittling down enemy numbers. That said, the small size of your squads makes it devastating when just one man is killed. Lose your sniper, and it's pretty much game over unless you're in the home stretch.

Jungle terrain is both an ally and an enemy. The engine does a great job rendering the foliage of Southeast Asia, and it isn't just for show. It's so thick that you can ably stage hit-and-run raids where you blitz enemy positions and then fade back into the green. Bad guys take advantage of the green stuff as well, though, and it's so voluminous that you often can't see anything. Events develop so fast that your men might be slaughtered before you can get the camera properly into position. You expect a lot of jungle in a Vietnam game, of course, but it seems like you wind up with a big frond in your face every time you adjust the camera the slightest bit to better view a firefight.


The plan: Kill, or be killed.
All of the campaign missions can also be run through cooperatively with up to four other players. This is the best way to play the game, as it mitigates the extreme difficulty of going solo. It also lets you tackle objectives more efficiently via coordinated attacks. Some missions seem to have been designed with co-op in mind. The first mission, in fact, features a section where you must detonate three US Hueys before they take off. This is hard to achieve playing solo without sacrificing at least one man during the assault, because the choppers head to the skies almost as soon as you open fire. But when you're playing with a buddy, you can divvy up the targets to blow them all up before the pilots can get the rotors spinning. Unfortunately, there are some technical problems with online play. Connection errors frequently pop up on the server screen, making it impossible to join many matches. This may be because of conflicts between various versions of the game sold by different retailers or conflicts between those who purchased the DLC pack released alongside the main game and those who did not. Either way, a patch is desperately needed. Even when you can get into games, the play is a bit laggy, and synchronization issues frequently arise.

As frustrating as Men of War: Vietnam is, it still provides some satisfying moments. Emerging hale and hearty at the end of a mission is always cause for celebration, seeing how the odds are so slanted against you, and the opposing forces are made up of what seems to be the entire US Army or Vietcong. Still, the extreme challenge is a tough sell, and it makes it so difficult to get past the first mission that you might never get to the point where you can get hooked.

Breath of Death VII: The Beginning

It’s very refreshing to come across an RPG that’s both self-aware and joyously humorous. Comedy RPGs are a real rarity, so whenever one comes along, it usually provides something different from what most other entries in the genre have to offer. Sure, the underlying plot may deal with destruction and evil creatures, but the dialogue and writing are different from most RPGs and warrant a play-through by gamers. This is especially true for those who want to take a break from the typical turn-based title. Breath of Death VII: The Beginning does just that—it offers a unique RPG experience that’s fun, retro, and totally hilarious, even if it is a bit short.
Don’t let its name fool you. Breath of Death VII is actually the first (and currently only) game in the series. The game starts out with a nice, old-school cutscene that depicts a brutal war. After a massive weapon destroys the entire planet, a civilization of undead creatures rises and rules peacefully over the land. These friendly monsters create an ideal world and live happily within it—until an evil entity makes its presence felt across the land. That’s when Dem, the skeleton knight, rises to the occasion and goes on a quest to save the world from destruction.

If this all sounds a little quirky to you, that’s because it is, and the characters are just as strange as the tale itself. For starters, Dem doesn’t talk because he believes that a true hero should never speak. How do I know this? Because the narrator immediately turns on the Thoughts-Subtitle-O-Matic, which allows players to read what Dem is thinking. The rest of the cast is just as colorful, and the many characters you meet along the way often have hilarious things to say. The humor in Breath of Death isn’t so much about jokes or delivery. Instead, characters make references to other titles like Resident Evil, Castlevania, Pokemon, Earthbound, and Zelda. If you’ve played a lot of different franchises, you’ll instantly get plenty of the references, and they’re sure to bring a cheesy grin to your face.
Though Breath of Death VII emulates classic RPGs in terms of its graphics and menu design, the gameplay is actually a lot more forgiving than the punishing titles of old. You must travel to various towns in order to receive your next objective.  While in towns, you can purchase upgraded weapons and armor. Along the way, you traverse an overworld map full of random encounters. In between the towns and overworld, you must clear dungeons and increase your party until you have four total members—each bearing his or her own special abilities, strengths, and weaknesses.
Dungeons are completely maze-like and require plenty of exploration and backtracking. As you explore caves, cities, and sewers, you engage in battles with enemies and collect upgrades and gold. If you want to find everything in the game, you’re definitely going to have to do some backtracking. This can be a bit of a hassle, especially in the bigger stages later on, because exploring the large mazes isn’t always enjoyable. Now, normally it would be a total pain having to deal with random encounters, because many of the dungeons’ paths lead to dead ends, while others lead to weapons and treasure. Thankfully, the random encounters within dungeons are limited. So once you’ve beaten all of the foes in a dungeon, you don’t need to worry about any unwanted surprises, and you can explore the mazes at your own pace.

Battles are also a lot simpler than most retro RPGs. Though the basic turn-based setup remains intact, you have several different attack options at your disposal and a combo system that allows you to perform strong finishing attacks. Tallying up your combo with constant offense allows you to set up a devastating attack that’s increasingly powerful based on your combo count. These moves can be used to finish off stronger enemies rather quickly, and they definitely come in useful in boss fights. Breath of Death VII puts a lot of emphasis on quick battles. You won’t spend several minutes on these encounters, and don’t be surprised if certain sequences take you mere seconds. This will either be welcome by RPG fans or it will be slightly disliked. Personally, I prefer longer, more complicated battles. That said, there’s no denying the fun factor in taking out baddies with a couple of high impact moves.
Upon clearing battles, you are rewarded with experience points. Once you level up, you can choose from two different upgrades at a time. Sometimes the game asks you to upgrade either your characters’ stats or add a new move to your arsenal. Other times you can choose between upping your defense or adding HP to your party. Depending on how you like playing, and whether you prefer magic or physical offense and defense, the game lets you decide what type of characters you want in your party, which is pretty cool.

One element that Breath of Death VII decided to keep completely old-school was its presentation. The game looks and sounds like a retro RPG through and through. This isn’t a bad thing, though, and the game’s presentation shines through as remarkably stylistic. That said, the plain black backgrounds during battle sequences are really drab and offer nothing in the way of graphical eye candy. The music, though largely enjoyable, is definitely not as pleasant as that of Cthulhu Saves the World, developer Zeboyd’s other comedy RPG.
Breath of Death VII is a fairly short game, especially for an RPG. The main adventure should take you about five hours, which isn’t too bad, as the game tends to drag a bit toward the end. There are three difficulty settings, and beating the game gives you access to Score Attack mode, which is a fun addition. Overall, the value is really good, because for just $3 you get Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World, which is lengthier and better overall. If you’re a fan of old-school RPGs or crazy games with a good sense of humor, you simply can’t go wrong with Breath of Death VII: The Beginning. Even with its few flaws, it’s still a highly enjoyable parody adventure worth plaything through.

Hard Reset

Forget run and cover mechanics, regenerating health, or constantly reloading weapons.  Hard Reset is straight-forward, shoot-anything-that-moves game that harks back to the simplistic days of first person shooters.  This action-packed shooter will test your skills, reflexes, and patience as you run-and-gun your way through a cyberpunk environment destroying everything you see.
Don’t expect much in terms of plot.  Between the mayhem are comic-style drawings that poorly attempt to explain what is going on.  It’s your typical man vs AI story.  Hard Reset takes, what I like to call, “the Michael Bay approach”.  Ridiculous explosions and nonstop action.
Though simplistic in design, this game is definitely a challenge.  Armed with two bad-ass transforming weapons (more on that later) and an environment filled with explosive barrels, cars, and electronic machinery, you must annihilate hordes of enemy robots as they endlessly swarm from all around.  Don’t expect a second of downtime in Hard Reset.  Lurking behind every corner is a wave of merciless enemy robots waiting to tear you limb from limb.

Watch the Hard Reset story teaser
Hard Reset successfully combines the nostalgic feel of an old-fashioned shooter with the glorious HD environment of a modern game.  Though fairly linear in design, with only slight room to explore in search of “Secrets”, Bezoar City is as nice to look at as a lifeless, futuristic city overrun by rampaging robots can be.  The city’s sprawling skyscrapers are loaded with art deco styled detail and corporate advertising reminiscent to Blade Runner.  The cluttered streets and tight alleys are littered with abandoned vehicles and run-down architecture defaced with graffiti.
The environment isn’t without purpose, however.  The futuristic Bezoar City is filled with cold, neon-tech and explosive debris which you must use to your advantage.  Strategically placed cars, machinery, barrels, and boxes can all easily be ignited, sending electric currents and burning shrapnel in all directions.  You can (and definitely will) use the volatile environment to your advantage and take out large numbers of enemies, but one stray bullet could also spell doom for yourself.
As I mentioned earlier, you are armed only with two weapons that transform to meet your needs.  These are the CLG, which uses a more primitive bullet/explosive ammunition, and the N.R.G., which gives off a more futuristic vibe using electricity.  As you earn experience, you can upgrade each weapon enabling it to transform into other configurations like a shotgun, grenade launcher, or mortar.  Eventually, upgrading each weapon further will lead to secondary firing modes like stuns and AOE damage.  In addition to weapon upgrades, you can choose to go with the more passive upgrades, like greater damage resistance or a radar to track the enemies.

See the chaotic gameplay of Hard Reset in this video
Those of you from the less-forgiving generation of games will find Hard Reset as a refreshing challenge.  You will often find yourself in small combat areas filled with explosive objects that splash damage or a wayward bullet will easily ignite, resulting in your death.  Or there may be times when you are thrown in the middle of two giant robots with little navigation room, while smaller robots chomp away at your health.  These “cheap” deaths, as they are often referred to, are a testament to the challenges and difficulties we faced when playing old-school games that didn’t coddle it’s players.  Is it sometimes frustrating?  Of course it is.  But when it’s all said and done, and you complete the level, by carefully plodding your movements and strategically blowing up your surroundings, you get that sense of fulfillment and completion that many modern games don’t offer to today’s generation.
The game is not without flaws, however.  Switching weapons is often difficult and they don’t necessarily respond in the timely manner that you need them to.  In a game that depends on quickly equipping the right weapon for the situation I would’ve liked it to switch more quickly.  The textures, while nice from far away, are not as detailed as you’d expect form a modern game.  Lastly, the game is very short (roughly 4-5 hours), but it does have some replay value if you are looking to find all the “secrets” and get a high score for the level.
While Hard Reset is a fun play, it is by no means groundbreaking.  It’s a fun throwback for old-school gamers looking to get their fix of explosions.  It may appear like mindless running and shooting, but there is more strategy involved than that which meets the eye.  The game depends on your reflexes and carefully timed, precise shots to fully maximize the environments destructive potential.
A simple rule to play by: if it moves, shoot it.  The second rule to play by: if it doesn’t move, you should still shoot it because it will probably explode.

Dead Island

Dead Island had, what many consider, the roughest launch in gaming history.  From the accidental Xbox 360 developer build release on Steam to the “Feminist Wh*re” code to the PS3 trophy bug, Dead Island has had quite the rocky start.
Looking beyond that, Dead Island is still a fun play.  Dead Island strands you on a “small” vacation island off the coast of Papua New Guinea during the midst of a zombie outbreak.  Though labeled “small”, the island is actually quite large, featuring lavish environments filled with side-quests and hordes of zombies.  The game begins with you selecting one of four characters, each equipped with a unique skill-set that takes advantage of the types of weapons you’ll find scattered around the island.
Though Dead Island borrows features from other successful zombie games, like Dead Rising’s weapon creation and Left 4 Deads first-person, co-op action gameplay, Dead Island really is a totally different beast.  Though it’s a zombie game, the primary focus isn’t about the blood and gore.  At its core, Dead Island is a game about survival.  From the strategies you’ll use when playing to the side-quests you’ll pick up in your journey, the main goal is survival.
In most zombie games, you survive by shredding through the hordes of zombies.  Not in this game.  You survive by using what you find, and what you find is scarce and with limited durability.
You must pick and choose your fights carefully.  Strategy is a key element in this game; and sometimes, it’s smarter to just run from the wave of zombies than trying to bash your way through them resulting in a broken weapon.  These constant decisions you are forced to make is what sets Dead Island apart from other zombie games.

Check out the Dead Island Launch Trailer
Dead Island does a great job of making you feel like you are in the midst of a zombie outbreak.  The constant worry about lack of weapons, few med kits, and a limited stamina bar leave you with an unsettling feeling.  It’s a zombie game;  you should be scared.  You should be worrying about zombies lurking around the corner.  You should be worried about scavenging for weapons.  You should be worried about finding a workbench to keep your weapons repaired.
Unfortunately, the fear of dying is somewhat diminished by the lack of real punishment.  When you die, you must wait five seconds before resspawning in another location with slightly less money.  Any zombies you killed and the damage you inflicted before dying remain.  If you’re like me, and rush into fights resulting in death, you’ll appreciate the leniency.
The strength of Dead Island lies within the environment created and the open world RPG-element that results from it.  As you explore every nook and cranny of the massive world, you will run into plenty of survivors begging for your help.  There were so many side-quests that I actually found myself getting annoyed and asking why I’m the only person who could help them.  While you don’t have to, helping these survivors will result in rewards that will only make your main objective easier to achieve.
The great thing about Dead Island is you really become the character.  As you complete quests and kill zombies, you’ll be rewarded experience which you can use to level your character.  As you level, you unlock different skills by investing your XP points into them.  All of the characters each have unique skills that take advantage of the various weapons you’ll find.  There are three skill trees for each character so even if you’re playing with a friend who is the same character, you might have different specialties.

An extended, 20-minute gameplay clip
Speaking of multiplayer, Dead Island plays better when you have a buddy with you watching your back.  Not only does it give you a sense of camaraderie in a game where you’re constantly alone, but they can help with the more difficult quests.  Even if playing alone, you are given the option to join a player who is close to you via a pop-up message notification.
Dead Island is not without flaws though.  The combat is entertaining, though somewhat hindered by poor collision detection.  There are times when you can be aimed right at the zombie, swing, and still miss.  Though it isn’t game-breaking, it takes away from the enjoyment of zombie skull-bashing.  Don’t fret, there are plenty opportunities to make blood spurt out the top of a headless zombie in the game with the game’s dismemberment system.  The story, which offers 20-30 hours of gameplay, is pretty flat and filled with bland acting.
Dead Island may be a little rough around the edges, but it offers enough good things to make up for some of the more unpolished gameplay you’ll experience.  It does have some replay value when playing with friends and the announcement of DLC should add additional hours of gameplay.  It’s not a perfect game, but it’s a fun game.

Rio Review

Rio is inconsistent and short on personality, but there's some enjoyment to be had in this multiplayer party game.

The Good

• Many enjoyable minigames   
• Just $30.

The Bad

• Doesn't take advantage of film license   
• Some games are too basic to appeal to players of any age.

In the tradition of Fuzion Frenzy and the Mario Party games comes Rio. Rio tosses the vibrant avian stars of the animated film of the same name into a host of simple minigames. Not all of the games here will hold the interest of even young players for very long, and Rio fails to capitalize on its film license, squandering its story and giving its characters short shrift. But young players (and their parents) will find some enjoyment in the better minigames here, and the reasonable $30 price makes its shortcomings a little easier to overlook.

If you've spent any time with party games, everything about Rio will feel immediately familiar. You, and hopefully one to three friends, progress through a series of games simple enough that brief instruction screens before each one tell you everything you need to know about how to play them. There are 43 games in all, but don't take that to mean there are 43 entirely different types of experiences to be had here. Many of the games are very similar to each other, and they can be grouped into just a few categories.

Welcome to Rio, where birds engage in reckless activities for your enjoyment!

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There are some basic rhythm games in which the characters dance or play a musical instrument, and you need to push a thumbstick in a certain direction in time with onscreen prompts. These games move at a pace that most players of any age will find easy to keep up with and some will find too easy to be interesting. Then, there are shooting galleries in which you move an onscreen reticle to target fireworks or marmosets. The fireworks minigame is absorbing because your score multiplier increases each time you score a hit and gets wiped out if you miss, which encourages you to take shots carefully. Shooting marmosets is much less interesting. The screen is constantly filled with the animals, so you just move your reticle around and fire as much as possible, which quickly gets old.

In some games, players drop fruit from a high ledge onto marmosets or onto another player below. Being the one the other players are targeting is exciting; you dodge left and right and try to mislead your opponents about which direction you're going to head in next. But dropping fruit from above is less engaging. The camera is too far out to give you a clear view of the action, and when targeting marmosets, there are so many creatures and so much movement down below that it's difficult to keep track of who's hitting what. As a result, there's little satisfaction to savor when the watermelon you toss strikes true.

A number of games are variations on musical chairs. You and your competitors run around trying to collect as much fruit as possible, and when the music stops (or when villainous cockatoo Nigel appears), you scurry into a hiding place or leap onto a perch. As in actual musical chairs, there's a rush of excitement when the time comes for everyone to hurry to safety and someone is left in the cold. A few games are pure tests of your reflexes. One, which is conceptually identical to a game in Fuzion Frenzy, places you atop a moving vehicle and requires you to press buttons to leap over and duck under obstacles. Another has you and the other birds flying down a street, moving up and down to avoid fire hydrants, awnings, and other hazards. These modes start out slowly and progressively get faster and faster, ratcheting up the excitement as players are eliminated until only one is left standing.

These birds spend a lot of time either collecting fruit or kicking fruit.

The largest group of games are those that put you and your rivals in a small, contained area. These have you collecting fruit while avoiding an incoming tide; collecting fruit while jumping over a rope; running around and throwing snowballs, mud balls, or soccer balls at each other; or doing some other simple activity to try to earn the most points. These games move quickly and control well, making it satisfying to snag those bananas and mangoes from an approaching opponent or nail your friend with a soccer ball to the beak in dodgeball. Power-ups that provide brief score multipliers, speed increases, or other benefits like stealing points from a competitor lend the action an element of unpredictability without being frequent enough to make the contests feel purely like games of chance rather than skill.

There are a number of ways to play Rio. A Story mode loosely follows the events of the film. You play a few games in a given location and then a character from the movie updates you on your standings and tells part of the story before you move on to the next location from the film to play a few more games. The characters who narrate the story--Luiz the bulldog, Mauro the marmoset, and Nigel the cockatoo--repeat sections of dialogue so frequently that kids may be reciting them along with the characters before you've even finished it once, making this mode one you won't want to return to after completing it. Carnaval Wheel mode has players spin wheels to determine which game will be played next and the point value of that game. In Garland Gala, you earn garlands based on your performance in the minigames and then toss them at targets to score points and determine the game's victor. Carnaval Dance has you competing with other players to get a certain number of marmosets into your conga line, and it awards you four marmosets for each first-place finish in a minigame, three for each second-place finish, and so on.

The problem with all of these modes is that the selection of games you play is random. Initially, this is fine, but before long, you've seen all the minigames and inevitably will prefer some to others. For this reason, Party mode, in which you can create custom games with whichever minigames you want to play and lets you compete as individuals or on teams, is likely to be your go-to mode. There are also quiz variations in Party mode. In quiz games, players are asked questions between each minigame, with correct answers contributing to your position in the standings. These multiple-choice questions cover both places related to the movie ("Do you know which country Minnesota is in?") and specific plot points from the film, which make them as much a test of whether you've seen the movie as they are a test of knowledge. Additionally, repeats start cropping up in these questions after just a few games, so you won't select the quiz variants more than a few times.

This is Nico. He wears a bottle cap on his head for some reason.

It's a shame that the game doesn't take better advantage of the film on which it's based. The six birds that make up the playable characters really stand out on the screen, thanks to their vibrant feathers, but their personalities don't come through at all. Each has a few lines that he or she rattles off frequently during minigames, but that's about it. The disappointing Story mode uses snippets from the film so brief that you might miss them if you blink. Where other games aimed at kids, like Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, have used their characters to great effect, Rio's failure to capitalize on the source material feels like a missed opportunity.

There's no online support here; you can only play locally. Given the game's party vibe and target audience of young children, this isn't much of a setback. It's the sort of game that ought to be played with people in the same room. Not every minigame is a winner, and they could have benefitted from more charm and personality, but there's enough family-oriented fun here to make this good-natured game an enjoyable diversion.

By Carolyn Petit, GameSpot