LucasArts and BioWare officially announced Star Wars: The Old Republic yesterday, confirming what many suspected for quite a while: that the long-time Star Wars rpg maker had plans to enter the MMORPG market and LucasArts was desperate to retry an entry into the market and needed a prestigious game company such as BioWare to make gamers listen. Well, LucasArts was right, and to prove it, the blogosphere is full of a relatively positive spin on the new game, despite the major failings of LucasArt’s prior MMORPG partnership with Sony dubbed “Star Wars: Galaxies”.

So what makes Star Wars: The Old Republic, any different? For starters, it’s made from scratch by BioWare, a company that has excelled at making involving Star Wars RPG’s. BioWare merely has to succesfully make the leap to making a stellar massive multiplayer RPG, and BioWare would have a formula that may dethrone the famed World of Warcraft as the top dog in the multi-billion dollar MMO market. In fact, the US market alone is nearing a $2 billion area, while the Asian MMO market is fielding almost $3 billion. Due to the international appeal of the Star Wars brand name, this could truly be monumental. The Star Wars appeal truly outdoes Warcraft’s in many regards: while Warcraft is well-known by gamers internationally, Star Wars is known by almost everyone in the world, gamer or not. Such an appeal could lure in new first-time massive multiplayer gamers, even in international markets.

Yet, due to the failings of Star Wars: Galaxies to net such a positive reaction, how can it be any different for BioWare’s attempt? First, “Galaxies” attempted to pull a fast one on gamers to make a quick buck. LucasArts was not heavily involved in the game-making process, and merely handed off a license to Sony to make the game. Sony then proceeded with the horrible idea of taking a medieval MMORPG engine, that of Everquest, and quite literally in some senses, repainting over the medieval settings to look like it was Star Wars. The more humorous aspect of Galaxies was in that, despite being a “Star Wars” game, at launch there was no space battle possible, and the possibility of being a jedi was negligible, and to top it off the combat involved little skill as it mostly involved auto-attacking, what many gamers call “sandwich combat”, in that you can click, set a target, begin attacking them, and then walk off to eat a sandwich while your character fights the enemy.

Indeed, if “Star Wars: The Old Republic” wishes to avoid these problems, BioWare must clearly address them and show how they are different from Galaxies in that regard.

This is the game I am most looking forward to. It is released in 2009 which is a ways off, but it is good to have the heads up. This is a MMO coming out first for the PC then for other consoles. It is very similar to Grand Theft Auto in that it is open ended game play and an enforcers vs criminals environment. The creator David Jones is actually the creator of the original Grand Theft Auto and wants to get Rockstar Games who publishes the GTA series to buy this game and change the name to Grand Theft Auto Online. This would ensure the name recognition and boost sales.

The game is very different from most MMO’s which are based on leveling and buying/finding the best armor and weapons. This video game is a third person shooter where there is no leveling per say. As a criminal or gangster you gain turf for your gang and respect or rank for yourself. You can get better weapons, but you can loose them as well. The lower ‘respected’ criminals have to rob convenience stores and do small bit crimes. The higher ranking criminals rob banks and have ‘grand scheme’ plans. I should also mention that there is fighting between rival gangs.

As for the cops, they patrol the streets looking for these gangsters and can have shoot outs with them in high speed pursuits. The police system works similar in that the more crimes you stop, the higher ranking and more equipment you are allocated by the Police Force.

A unique aspect is that you can do simultaneous missions. For example the gangsters could be doing a drug deal while the cops are sent out to bust it up. Whoever completes the mission wins more money to buy better weapons. Now that’s real mmo competition! There is also the fact that you can jump in and play this game and not feel like you have to stay for long amounts of time. There is no grind where you work on leveling your character for most of the game. It is more similar to a shooter game where you jump in and play and can leave at any time without remorse. It is also a cool game for hardcore gamers and easy going gamers in that respect. They will also have character and vehicle customization which is always interesting and keeps the in-game world from looking replicated.

It uses the Unreal Engine 3.0, and from the game clips I’ve seen it looks quite impressive. So whether your into Grand Theft Auto, shooter games, turf games or cops vs robbers games, this is the game for you.

This game has photo realistic graphics from the WW II era. Not to mention realistic firing of weaponry and vehicle mechanics that are flawless. It has an easier interface for ordering your troops. The A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) is superior to other games. The German troops flank, attack and hide in ways that the real Wehrmacht were trained in tactics. This is making me want to run out and buy it right now as I write. The game was just realease yesterday. The game already has a large following as it is the third in it’s series. The game is built on the Unreal Engine3 and the Windows version takes advantage of the features in Direct X 10 which allows for an enhanced graphical experience for more life like gameplay. It is released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as PC.

Not many people have heard of this game. It is from a small but quality publisher Paradox Interactive they make mostly strategy games. If you are a hardcore gamer like me and want to challenge yourself this is the game for you. It will take some time to learn and there is alot of micro management. But it is worth the learning curve once you get the hang of it. The game is set in World War II, what better setting for strategy and leading your country to greatness. You can be nearly any country, not just the main countries involved. You could be Argentina and try and take over South America and the U.S. It is possible with enough time, well placed attacks, and built up industries. Well the U.S. part is hard, but enough about that. There is also multiplayer for network as well as online. I give this game a 10/10 because it does what it was made to do, and that is create a diplomatic/war game that is exciting and fun.

They are the worst company as well as game publishers ever! They buy out small companies like Bullforg who made a tight game called Dungeon Keep 2 and they scrap the sequel to the game. They also make a Lord of the Rings Middle Earth 2 game that you can’t play multiplayer networked on! Where’s the fun in that? They also made that Godfather game for consoles that was linear as playing the movie and not at all as open as GTA. Once you killed all the families, there is no one left to fight. No replayablity there. Their number one offense however was buying out Origin who owned Ultima Online. They destroyed UO and there has never been a game that could come close to that one. Now they are making Warhammer online, well excuse me if I don’t go rush to the store for that one! Everyone will get sick of it in two weeks. That’s my rant and you don’t have to agree, I just happen to be correct.

When I heard about this game over a year ago I was pretty stoked. It has been in the wood works for over three years, so you would expect greatness. It had all the makings of a great game. You could evolve from a little cell all the way up to a sentient being who travels the galaxy in a spaceship. There are five stages in the game the cell, creature, tribal, civilization, and space stage. You can create your own creature and content throughout all but the space stage(besides your ship).

It sounds cool, and it is for the first day or so. Then it starts to get boring in space, everyone says they love the space mode, but wait till you play it enough. You have to travel back and forth preventing eco disaster every ten min which gets monotonous. On top of that the wars with other nations aren’t that fun and are more of a task than enjoyment. There are better space games out there likes Sins of a Solar Empire.

If you try to play the game over again from the beginning it still isn’t that fun. The only phase that isn’t similar to other games are the cell and creature phase. But you can only play that so many times before it gets boring. In the original game trailer the creature phase was more like the Discovery Channel. More gritty and raw. The animal would actually tear the meat off its prey. But now it is more like a childish cartoon. It is literally hard to make your character look intimidating. Plus every time you die you just spawn again in the same level. What kind of challenge is that? You can’t lose essentially. While kids may enjoy that, real gamers want to challenge themselves. Even with higher difficulty you still can’t lose and their are little setbacks if any till the space age. If this game had been multiplayer where you can challenge your friends creatures to battles, that would add more to the replayability.

Sadly, this is the first time Will Wright has ever let me down. It’s like he gave a half-hearted attempt at this one. Plus they made the game too kiddy like for the extreme gamer. Its like a game you would get your kids to keep em busy for a long while. The desigin and controls are easy enough for them to learn almost instantly. I give it a 6/10.

This is the fifth installment in the Call of Duty Series. It is on all platforms essentially including PC. This game is set in World War II in the Pacific and Russia-German conflicts. The graphics are even better than the last one in the saga. It keeps all the great gameplay and now you can even play with four of your friends split screen online vs other players on console. They have also kept the perks and rank features from COD 4 so that will be interesting to see what that looks like in a WW II setting. There is possibly even going to be vehicles in multiplayer mode-lookout BF2! What could make this game anybetter; virtual reality i suppose. I can’t wait to beta test it in the upcoming month or so! The final version will be release November 11th.

This movie to video game adaptation is done very well. It is a mmorpg (massively multiplayer online role playing game) that has a unique combat system where you attack directionally instead of click and lock on like most mmos. You perform combo by hitting the directional attack buttons in sequence. This can lead to cool fatalities and more damage.

It is set in the Robert E. Howard universe which has its own races and cultures besides that of Conan’s Cimmeria. You can choose to start in Cimmeria; a barbaric cold world. Stygia; an Egyptian like world with Pyramids and snake worshipers. There is also Aquilonia which is like an advanced society like the Romans or Byzantium.

There are many guilds in the game some with over 300 people others with 50-60 people. They are going to add Guild Alliances and Alliance Battle Keeps. There are plenty of servers to choose from as well. They have PvE (player vs environment) or PVP servers or culture PvP where you fight different race classes.

The leveling system goes as such; from 1-20 you play in Tortage a pirate island so you can learn the game and system. Then from 20-80 you essentially play in the full world and can engage in PvP anywhere outside of cities. There are some solo instances(zones) where you can only fight by yourself against monsters. There are also raid instances where you need large groups to defeat epic monsters. Sometime you need from 6-12 players depending on the instance. These zones will yield better loot such as swords or armor with better stats.

The game’s initial release had so much hype that it had trouble living up to it in the first few months. Now, they have PVP (player versus player) experience and have fixed a lot of the errors and bugs that occurred in the early months. They have ironed out almost all of the bug and game play problems. They have smoothed over some of the class differences as well. There may still be a gap between some classes, but each one is needed to fill out a good team.

You can siege other player made Battle Keeps or fight in other PVP skirmishes and mini games. There are catupults and War Mammouths that can take down the enemies walls. You can defend you keep with Archers and guards from inside and out. The graphics are very good so make sure you have the latest requirements before buying the game. I give it a 9/10.