Product Description

You don't have to spend countless hours on a leveling treadmill to get to the interesting parts of the game, because combat is designed to be strategically interesting and challenging right from the beginning. You don't have to spend hours running around the world to prepare for a quest, because Guild Wars allows you to instantly travel to the beginning of any quest that you've previously unlocked. You'll never spend days playing only to discover that choices you made early on have left you with ... Read more

Features

• Built for Competition - After learning the game and building up your first character, you may choose to test your skills in head-to-head competition or guild warfare. The game is designed to reward player skill and teamwork, not time spent playing, so you won't need to spend hundreds of hours leveling up your character to compete.
• The game includes integrated support for guilds, with guild banners and halls, chat rooms and forums. Guilds can challenge other guilds to battle, compete for control of key parts of the world, and be ranked on a worldwide ladder.
• Unique Streaming Technology - ArenaNet's unique streaming technology forever eliminates the concept of patching a game. You don't have to wait a month for the next big patch to experience new content. Instead, the game constantly and intelligently streams new content to your computer in the background while you play. The world can change continually. This allows us to build a much more dynamic game world than any thathas existed before.

Reviews (53)

Guild wars got it RIGHT
My experience with mmorpg's include DAOC, SWG, PS, EQ II and WOW...yes I am a geek. Guild wars got it right

MISSIONS & TRAVELING:
There are missions to do if you choose to, missions basically lead a player from one town to another. The missions use waypoints to make it easy. You can choose to group with henchmen (AI) or other players. It does not take long to form groups, longest I have waited is 3 minutes (no kidding). Traveling from city to city that you have been to is as easy as opening up the map and clicking (no more time sinks).

LOOT:
Loot drops are automatically assigned to each player of a group. There are 3 different types of quality loot: white (least rarest), blue, purple, yellow (most rarest). I am level 15/20 and I have only seen yellow loot drop twice, super sweet stuff. I love searching for loot drops fun :)

PVP:
2 types of pvp arena and capture the flag. Capture the flag is played in groups of 8, 6 teams and is for the level 20s. If you don't want to level a character, just make a level 20, the game allows you to do this to play capture the flag only. U.S, Europe and Korea compete in capture the flag and the winners are announced in system messages. Arena is AWESOME. No need to find a group, just click join and you are randomly grouped with others for a 4-on-4 battle, fun because it is so balanced. Skill is the only thing that matters, did I say super balanced :) I often find myself in 2 hour sessions saying just one more battle and you get experience.

EXTRA:
There is NO monthly fee. The load times of this game are fastest I have ever seen, 1 sec for me. No more time sinks. I should have bought this a long time ago. If your going to buy 1 game for rest of 2005, it should be guild wars.

Game is not for All MMO players
this game is a good game but its not for all MMO playersits mainly for those that get board easily hehe who are low income and also for those that whine about kill steals

I like this game as it is set to where you can do most things solo at a early lvl and later on when you are established in a guild you can play for the higher lvls or just look around for a group granted there is some that rush through and some that dont know what they are doing there are always people like this in games but it is rewarding when you find a group that knows what to do and dont leave anyone behind if possible

i have a lvl 10 elementalist ranger at the moment and i have solowed for the most part with myself or 1 person in game or npc groupof 3 others with myselfthe group max is 4 now i believe i havent done any pvp yet but from the reviews ive read i doubpt i want to there are some invisable walls but you arnt lead down a path all the time you can cut crossed country in alot of areas

Economy is like all other games can be high in areas as people are greedy most of the stuff is found and sold on a auction channel of sorts but most basic thigns are bough from npc's

the avatars in my opinion as a female very beautiful atleast the elementalist but yes as in all games you have scruffy looking fellows too

The bottom line here is what one man's or woman's opinion of a game is not always the opinion you would give a game my advice is try it if ya dont like it sell it used or something like that or see if there is a trial or spend all your time reserching it and let somone else dictate rather you will or wont like a game you will never know till you play it for yourself.

Julie

Beware: MMO-Lite..All that glitter is not Gold
I frankly just burned my $50 bucks with this game. This game is Bad with a Capital 'B'. There is something seriously missing from this game(if you are a Star Wars fan..'the force is unusally weak with this one'). I find it hard to fanthom how so many people are claiming this game to be the next best thing since sliced bread. Trust me its not.
This game doesn't feel like an mmo its mostly a persistent single player online game. One of the main attraction of an mmo is to be able to see other people running around in a persistent world. You can wave them, help them out, have a chit-chat or maybe even duke it out if they are hostile to you. There is no such aspect to this game. Every mission is 'instanced'; its just you or your guild or AI henchman(AI lacks and they feel like 'npc's too). You dont get to see anyone else.
They are invisible walls in this game everywhere. Unlike many other mmo's you just can't walk over to where you please like in a real persistent world. Instead you are forced to follow and play along a path chosen for you. For e.g...you are going on the road and there is a nice water-fall you see some distance away. So you decide to walk down the hill and check it out. Surprise...there is a invisible wall blocking your way. You have to stay on the road..it was all just a illusion or some cosmetic matte painting. This cuts down the real virtual world factor right there and than. Your only chance of seeing a group of people is in the cities and the way the game is setup you wont be spending much time in cities anyway.The city further lack the community feeling with no inns, housing or gathering places everyone just stands in the middle of the town.
As far as rpg element is concerned, the classes and their powers are poorly setup. Only 8 of your skills can be used at any time. I want to be able to use more than 8 skills sometimes. Combining two clases is a good idea but the 8 skills limitation further cuts down the charm of this aspect.
There is no player run economy as to speak...you sell stuff to npc's ho hum. Player run economy is an absolute must in my view for an mmo to get some sense of realism.
PVP is where this game really falls apart. This mmo strong point was its 'pvp aspect'; however this is where it fails the most. Instead of providing a real war like feeling that is so well done in 'World of warcraft' this game throws you in team based instanced arenas. Just imagine playing a online fps like 'Unreal tournament' or 'Counter-strike' with fantasty characters as well as weapons and you will get the complete picture. Dont expect to be the ubber champ if you haven't first played the pve aspect of the game lvl 20 + and unlocked specials skills. Because you get the standard Lvl 20 template for those classes if you decide to just go pvp but not the special skills that you can unlock if you had tried the pve aspect first. Some of those pve learned special skills are clearly superior to the standard pvp template and players already know this aspect and have learned to exploit it. So it means that whether you want to do pve or not you will have to if you want to be really good in pvp and reaching to lvl 20 is still a time-intensive pve grind. Now i come to my biggest complaint when it comes to pvp. So many people are touting strategy and true skill-based pvp in this game. Well the truth is far from it. Unless you have established guild with people you know you will be thrown into random 4 man teams with each player specilizing in certain skills like 1 is ranger, 1 is tank etc.. You are forced to group to pvp whether you like it or not, forget about any sniper or solo support role. Not to my surprise this random team of unknown people falls apart rather quickly. Most of the teams i have played in like to just rush in or charge without any ryhme or reason and resulting mayhem causes utter confusion with the victor being a warior or someone who can mash buttons the fastest. Or everyone just go into different directions once they get into arena and you are pretty much on your own and good luck here if you a pure ranger. There is no strategy atall that i have seen any team discuss or even apply so far. Another huge pitfall is those invisible walls blocking you from striking at the opposing player. If say you are on a hill and you see the opposing players down below. Well you think that you have a strategic advantage here dont you escpecially if you are a full fledge Ranger/elementalist. Surprise...you just cant attack them in most cases because of those invisible cost-cutting walls and have to run down the long winding preset path to get them and in the meantime giving your position away. So forget about launching a surprise attack on anyone in most cases which is one of the major forte of true pvp. You will see many more pitfalls especially the feeling that there is no real war going on in this game. There is really no gain or charm from pvp except just for the thrill of doing pvp. You character dont gain anything. PVP should be a integral part of the game rpg aspect not some side wrestling match.
Last but not least, the character creation is worst of any recent mmo's I have played so far. Some of characters look like misfits out of a bad Gothic heavy metal group...just have a look at the game 'Necromancer'. Others look like drag queens(sorry not to offend anyone its just a quip). Ontop of it you just have few templates and cosmetic choices to apply. As a result most people end up looking much the same with a real bad wadrobe case. And dont get me started at the Warior template. Supposedly the warrior is the start all and end all class. What we get is an over-weight and bald extra reject from the Gladiator movie.
This is the end of my rant. If you look at my other reviews I give credit where its due and discredit where it is also due. This game is far from what some people are making it to be. There is a reason this game is not charging you a monthly fee and it shows. Read all the reviews and make a educated guess its just that there are far better 'real mmo's' out there too. Dont let fanboy's or overly exicited people mislead you. This game tries to do a lot of things all at the same time while cutting costs but in the end ends up doing nothing well. No-monthly fee here is a double-edged sword here. I for one will throw this game into my garbage can and they can forget me ever getting buying their other expansions. I got suckered once because of all hoop laa that surrounds this game...but no more.

Some aspects are very good, others need some work.
The first thing that should be stated forthright about this game is that it shouldn't be classified as a massive multiplayer online (MMO) game.Much of the game takes place in private zones that approximately 8 people can access at a single time.There are towns and outposts that can harbor many more players, but these are merely gathering areas to form groups for your private instanced area; the vast majority of this game takes place in very small groups that do not interact with anybody else.In nearly all other MMO games, you're interacting with a large number of people all the time.I suppose there are perks to having your own private area to share with a few other people, but I found much of the playable areas depressingly lonely since there is little, if any player-player interaction.

The game is divided up into two spheres: Player-Versus-Environment, and Player-Versus-Player, with specialized characters devoted to each.Player-versus-environment characters can explore the world AND engage in player-versus-player combat, but player-versus-player characters are restricted to just that: player-versus-player combat.As you progress through the main storyline and other side-quests with your player-versus-environment characters, the skills and items that you discover will be unlocked for any future player-versus-player character you create.If you haven't unlocked any items and skills and would still like to enjoy player-versus-player combat right off the bat, the game comes with several pre-made characters you can use solely for player-versus-player combat.There are six classes of players: warriors, rangers, monks, mesmers, necromancers, and elementalists.Each character has a primary profession and a secondary profession, allowing for interesting combinations of characters such as a player that is primarily a necromancer, but can swing a sword almost as good as a warrior.Some skill combinations don't really work too well, but the fact that there are a potential of 30 different classes combinations is pretty refreshing.In addition, even if you're the same primary and secondary profession as another character, you most likely have a different set of skills, of which you're only allowed to have 8 equipped at one time).This also aids in helping your character feel truly unique.

The main storyline is very good, and I enjoyed progressing through each quest as more of the main story was revealed.When you play through the main storyline, your character and whoever you're partnering up with, be it other human players or computer controlled "bots", are the focus of the quest, and your actions in the storyline make it seem like you're actually doing super-human deeds instead of some trivial task like delivering a package.It is your character that saves entire cities from certain doom, it is your character that holds off armies of undead as they march towards your location; nothing you do is trivial.

But once the main storyline is over, all you're left with is player-versus-player combat, which I personally did not enjoy.There are many strong strategies that people have already figured out for player-versus-player combat, so some battles are more luck than skill.Whenever I played in the player-versus-player arenas, I got the feeling that I was just playing some glorified first person shooter like Unreal Tournament, but with swords and spells.You can go back and try to unlock more items and spells, but this gets very boring and tedious quickly.I tried to play through the main storyline with a different type of character, but didn't find it as enjoyable or engaging as the first run through.

However the main thing makes this game unbearable isn't so much the game mechanics as it is the people who play Guild Wars.There is no community, and you will never see the same person more than one time.Also, in a game that requires a lot of team play and coordination, there is an overabundance of people who simply don't care for tactics and are bound to get your character killed with their carelessness.

The best part of Guild Wars is the fact that there is no monthly fee, and the steaming content that updates as you play.I'm sure ArenaNet will be able to do some interesting things with their streaming content system, but there really wasn't enough substance in the game to keep me hooked for long after I finished the main quest.The player-versus-player combat did not appeal to me, however if you believe that you'll like it, you'll most likely enjoy Guild Wars.If you're going to try this game, I strongly recommend you do so with a group of people that you already know, as there is no player community to speak of.

Better than any MMO EVER!
I've played almost every mmo out there and this game is definately a step above. I thought since there was no monthly fee that there would be a huge lack of content but boy was I wrong!!! I have played it since release and there is so much to do and so many styles of play that I feel I will never grow tired of it. I've cancelled all my monthly fee games to play this one and I haven't regreted it since! ... Read more

Features

• Increase rank and unlock awards; voice-over IP (VOIP) supported
• War simulation, online multiplayer action with 64 players on the PC
• Battle as U.S., Chinese, or Middle East Coalition troops
• 30+ land, sea, and air vehicles; choose from a variety of solider classes
• New state-of-the-art weapon systems, including heat seeking missiles

Features

• Increase rank and unlock awards; voice-over IP (VOIP) supported
• War simulation, online multiplayer action with 64 players on the PC
• Battle as U.S., Chinese, or Middle East Coalition troops
• 30+ land, sea, and air vehicles; choose from a variety of solider classes
• New state-of-the-art weapon systems, including heat seeking missiles

Product Description

The Star Wars universe is expanded and enhanced in this action-packed game. You'll interact with droids, Wookies, Jedi and more as you battle across the galaxy. Travel to a total of 10 awesome worlds—both familiar and new. May the force be with you. ... Read more

Features

• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Genre: Action/Adventure
• Mission: The ongoing battle between the Jedi and the Sith rages on. Your actions determine the outcome of this colossal galactic war—and your destiny as a Jedi
• Platform: Windows 98/98SE/Me/2000/XP

Reviews (206)

Play tester anyone?
I couldn't give this game a "fun" rating, because you have to be able to play a game to know if it's any fun.I ranked it a 1 because I certainly didn't have any fun with this product.

KOTOR didn't allow me that opportunity.

When I loaded the game, the framerate was something like 5 frames per second, and that was just the main menu screen.Once I got into the actual game, it ran at about 2 fps.

It's not like I was playing this on an overclocked 486 either.This was on a brand new computer that I had literally bought the week before I tried to play this game.

My specs:

Compaq Presario 4012 notebook
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor
512MB of RAM
ATI Mobility Xpress 200 graphics card

I spent three days mucking about with Bioware's tech support forums before I got an email back from Bioware's tech support that told me that ATI graphics cards in the family that my graphics card is in are incompatible with this game.If I wanted to play it, I'd need a card from NVIDIA.

Gee, that would have been nice to know before buying the game.Maybe they could have put something in the system requirements (Far Cry, for example, lists the compatible graphics cards in the system requirements)

Furthermore, that doesn't explain the fact that the reviewers at Gamespot (who for some inexplicable reason gave the game an 8.8 ranking) noted that they game flat-out wouldn't play on three of the four systems they tried it on.These are professional game reviewers.Surely, if a system exists that could handle this game, they would have more than one.(And one that it crashed frequently on, I might add)

The review is here:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/starwarsknightsoftor/index.html?q=knights+of+the+old+republic


It's obvious that Bioware developed this game for one hardware configuration, and didn't playtest it on anything that didn't match that configuration.Bioware is currently blaming ATI for faulty drivers-- adbicating any responsibility they have to release a product that actually works as advertised.



Here's a word of advice:Before you buy this game-- or any game from Bioware-- make darn sure you contact their tech support staff and ask them if the game will work with your specific hardware setup.And don't accept a "should work" answer either.Otherwise, you might just wind up with a very expensive set of shiny coasters.

GREAT GAME
THERE IS NO PS2 VERSION!! FOR THE PERSON THAT SAID HE HAS THE PS2 VERSION OF KOTOR. ONLY PC AND X-BOX.

Awsome Game
One of the best games i ever played, great story, really 2 different games choosing light or dark sides, highly recommend to anyone, even not star wars fans, great game.

PlayStation 2 version
I have this game in the PlayStation 2 version.It's a great game.I would like to sell it if anyone is interested.

the best video game of all time!
if that doesnt say it all,i will elaborate.this is a star wars role playing game.you pick this dude,gather droids,a wookie,some soldiers,some jedis and such then travel many planets and getting into all sorts of high adventure!you can choose from a long list of force powers to have.there are weopons practicly falling out of the trees.unlike older rpgs,you have control of your characters during battle.you can even customize weopons with all sorts of cool upgrades.theres a lot of stuff to do but it is highly unstructured.you could pay very little attention to the actual story and still become powerful just fighting monsters.then theres a few more cool things.one is you can coax just about anybody into a fight.you remember the old days when a king just told your guy off and sent him on a perilous journey then screwed him out of his money later?well now,if he tells you off,you can dismember him and if you dont want to do the job,you dont have to.if he screws with you,more often than not you can force choke him or blast him.so no more putting up with mouthy npc authority typeson a power trip!the other really cool thing is you dont have to be a good guy either.now you can go to the dark side if youd like.every decision you make can ultimately lead to a dark or light side point being gained.here are some examples of bad things that can get you dark side points.............using the jedi mind trick to force a wookie to kill his best friend,or using it to make someone commit suicide,refusing to pay docking fees,smuggling,killing witnesses,going to sith school.the story even changes for whatever style guy you run.but ultimately,you fight the same last boss,just under different circumstances.this is definately worth checking out! ... Read more

Product Description

Join a New Generation of Online Role-Playing! Guild Wars takes the best elements of today's massively multiplayer online games and combines them with a new mission-based design that eliminates the tedium of those games. You can meet new friends in towns or outposts, form a party, and then go tackle a quest together. Your party always has its own unique copy of the quest map, so camping, kill-stealing, and long lines to complete quests are all things of the past. Within a quest you have unprecede ... Read more

Features

• Competitive online role-playing game with head-to-head guild battles
• Explore fantasy world while pursuing professions and acquiring skills
• Open battlegrounds where victory determined by skill and teamwork
• Fully integrated support for guilds; streaming technology
• Cooperative group combat; single player missions

Reviews (53)

Guild wars got it RIGHT
My experience with mmorpg's include DAOC, SWG, PS, EQ II and WOW...yes I am a geek. Guild wars got it right

MISSIONS & TRAVELING:
There are missions to do if you choose to, missions basically lead a player from one town to another. The missions use waypoints to make it easy. You can choose to group with henchmen (AI) or other players. It does not take long to form groups, longest I have waited is 3 minutes (no kidding). Traveling from city to city that you have been to is as easy as opening up the map and clicking (no more time sinks).

LOOT:
Loot drops are automatically assigned to each player of a group. There are 3 different types of quality loot: white (least rarest), blue, purple, yellow (most rarest). I am level 15/20 and I have only seen yellow loot drop twice, super sweet stuff. I love searching for loot drops fun :)

PVP:
2 types of pvp arena and capture the flag. Capture the flag is played in groups of 8, 6 teams and is for the level 20s. If you don't want to level a character, just make a level 20, the game allows you to do this to play capture the flag only. U.S, Europe and Korea compete in capture the flag and the winners are announced in system messages. Arena is AWESOME. No need to find a group, just click join and you are randomly grouped with others for a 4-on-4 battle, fun because it is so balanced. Skill is the only thing that matters, did I say super balanced :) I often find myself in 2 hour sessions saying just one more battle and you get experience.

EXTRA:
There is NO monthly fee. The load times of this game are fastest I have ever seen, 1 sec for me. No more time sinks. I should have bought this a long time ago. If your going to buy 1 game for rest of 2005, it should be guild wars.

Game is not for All MMO players
this game is a good game but its not for all MMO playersits mainly for those that get board easily hehe who are low income and also for those that whine about kill steals

I like this game as it is set to where you can do most things solo at a early lvl and later on when you are established in a guild you can play for the higher lvls or just look around for a group granted there is some that rush through and some that dont know what they are doing there are always people like this in games but it is rewarding when you find a group that knows what to do and dont leave anyone behind if possible

i have a lvl 10 elementalist ranger at the moment and i have solowed for the most part with myself or 1 person in game or npc groupof 3 others with myselfthe group max is 4 now i believe i havent done any pvp yet but from the reviews ive read i doubpt i want to there are some invisable walls but you arnt lead down a path all the time you can cut crossed country in alot of areas

Economy is like all other games can be high in areas as people are greedy most of the stuff is found and sold on a auction channel of sorts but most basic thigns are bough from npc's

the avatars in my opinion as a female very beautiful atleast the elementalist but yes as in all games you have scruffy looking fellows too

The bottom line here is what one man's or woman's opinion of a game is not always the opinion you would give a game my advice is try it if ya dont like it sell it used or something like that or see if there is a trial or spend all your time reserching it and let somone else dictate rather you will or wont like a game you will never know till you play it for yourself.

Julie

Beware: MMO-Lite..All that glitter is not Gold
I frankly just burned my $50 bucks with this game. This game is Bad with a Capital 'B'. There is something seriously missing from this game(if you are a Star Wars fan..'the force is unusally weak with this one'). I find it hard to fanthom how so many people are claiming this game to be the next best thing since sliced bread. Trust me its not.
This game doesn't feel like an mmo its mostly a persistent single player online game. One of the main attraction of an mmo is to be able to see other people running around in a persistent world. You can wave them, help them out, have a chit-chat or maybe even duke it out if they are hostile to you. There is no such aspect to this game. Every mission is 'instanced'; its just you or your guild or AI henchman(AI lacks and they feel like 'npc's too). You dont get to see anyone else.
They are invisible walls in this game everywhere. Unlike many other mmo's you just can't walk over to where you please like in a real persistent world. Instead you are forced to follow and play along a path chosen for you. For e.g...you are going on the road and there is a nice water-fall you see some distance away. So you decide to walk down the hill and check it out. Surprise...there is a invisible wall blocking your way. You have to stay on the road..it was all just a illusion or some cosmetic matte painting. This cuts down the real virtual world factor right there and than. Your only chance of seeing a group of people is in the cities and the way the game is setup you wont be spending much time in cities anyway.The city further lack the community feeling with no inns, housing or gathering places everyone just stands in the middle of the town.
As far as rpg element is concerned, the classes and their powers are poorly setup. Only 8 of your skills can be used at any time. I want to be able to use more than 8 skills sometimes. Combining two clases is a good idea but the 8 skills limitation further cuts down the charm of this aspect.
There is no player run economy as to speak...you sell stuff to npc's ho hum. Player run economy is an absolute must in my view for an mmo to get some sense of realism.
PVP is where this game really falls apart. This mmo strong point was its 'pvp aspect'; however this is where it fails the most. Instead of providing a real war like feeling that is so well done in 'World of warcraft' this game throws you in team based instanced arenas. Just imagine playing a online fps like 'Unreal tournament' or 'Counter-strike' with fantasty characters as well as weapons and you will get the complete picture. Dont expect to be the ubber champ if you haven't first played the pve aspect of the game lvl 20 + and unlocked specials skills. Because you get the standard Lvl 20 template for those classes if you decide to just go pvp but not the special skills that you can unlock if you had tried the pve aspect first. Some of those pve learned special skills are clearly superior to the standard pvp template and players already know this aspect and have learned to exploit it. So it means that whether you want to do pve or not you will have to if you want to be really good in pvp and reaching to lvl 20 is still a time-intensive pve grind. Now i come to my biggest complaint when it comes to pvp. So many people are touting strategy and true skill-based pvp in this game. Well the truth is far from it. Unless you have established guild with people you know you will be thrown into random 4 man teams with each player specilizing in certain skills like 1 is ranger, 1 is tank etc.. You are forced to group to pvp whether you like it or not, forget about any sniper or solo support role. Not to my surprise this random team of unknown people falls apart rather quickly. Most of the teams i have played in like to just rush in or charge without any ryhme or reason and resulting mayhem causes utter confusion with the victor being a warior or someone who can mash buttons the fastest. Or everyone just go into different directions once they get into arena and you are pretty much on your own and good luck here if you a pure ranger. There is no strategy atall that i have seen any team discuss or even apply so far. Another huge pitfall is those invisible walls blocking you from striking at the opposing player. If say you are on a hill and you see the opposing players down below. Well you think that you have a strategic advantage here dont you escpecially if you are a full fledge Ranger/elementalist. Surprise...you just cant attack them in most cases because of those invisible cost-cutting walls and have to run down the long winding preset path to get them and in the meantime giving your position away. So forget about launching a surprise attack on anyone in most cases which is one of the major forte of true pvp. You will see many more pitfalls especially the feeling that there is no real war going on in this game. There is really no gain or charm from pvp except just for the thrill of doing pvp. You character dont gain anything. PVP should be a integral part of the game rpg aspect not some side wrestling match.
Last but not least, the character creation is worst of any recent mmo's I have played so far. Some of characters look like misfits out of a bad Gothic heavy metal group...just have a look at the game 'Necromancer'. Others look like drag queens(sorry not to offend anyone its just a quip). Ontop of it you just have few templates and cosmetic choices to apply. As a result most people end up looking much the same with a real bad wadrobe case. And dont get me started at the Warior template. Supposedly the warrior is the start all and end all class. What we get is an over-weight and bald extra reject from the Gladiator movie.
This is the end of my rant. If you look at my other reviews I give credit where its due and discredit where it is also due. This game is far from what some people are making it to be. There is a reason this game is not charging you a monthly fee and it shows. Read all the reviews and make a educated guess its just that there are far better 'real mmo's' out there too. Dont let fanboy's or overly exicited people mislead you. This game tries to do a lot of things all at the same time while cutting costs but in the end ends up doing nothing well. No-monthly fee here is a double-edged sword here. I for one will throw this game into my garbage can and they can forget me ever getting buying their other expansions. I got suckered once because of all hoop laa that surrounds this game...but no more.

Some aspects are very good, others need some work.
The first thing that should be stated forthright about this game is that it shouldn't be classified as a massive multiplayer online (MMO) game.Much of the game takes place in private zones that approximately 8 people can access at a single time.There are towns and outposts that can harbor many more players, but these are merely gathering areas to form groups for your private instanced area; the vast majority of this game takes place in very small groups that do not interact with anybody else.In nearly all other MMO games, you're interacting with a large number of people all the time.I suppose there are perks to having your own private area to share with a few other people, but I found much of the playable areas depressingly lonely since there is little, if any player-player interaction.

The game is divided up into two spheres: Player-Versus-Environment, and Player-Versus-Player, with specialized characters devoted to each.Player-versus-environment characters can explore the world AND engage in player-versus-player combat, but player-versus-player characters are restricted to just that: player-versus-player combat.As you progress through the main storyline and other side-quests with your player-versus-environment characters, the skills and items that you discover will be unlocked for any future player-versus-player character you create.If you haven't unlocked any items and skills and would still like to enjoy player-versus-player combat right off the bat, the game comes with several pre-made characters you can use solely for player-versus-player combat.There are six classes of players: warriors, rangers, monks, mesmers, necromancers, and elementalists.Each character has a primary profession and a secondary profession, allowing for interesting combinations of characters such as a player that is primarily a necromancer, but can swing a sword almost as good as a warrior.Some skill combinations don't really work too well, but the fact that there are a potential of 30 different classes combinations is pretty refreshing.In addition, even if you're the same primary and secondary profession as another character, you most likely have a different set of skills, of which you're only allowed to have 8 equipped at one time).This also aids in helping your character feel truly unique.

The main storyline is very good, and I enjoyed progressing through each quest as more of the main story was revealed.When you play through the main storyline, your character and whoever you're partnering up with, be it other human players or computer controlled "bots", are the focus of the quest, and your actions in the storyline make it seem like you're actually doing super-human deeds instead of some trivial task like delivering a package.It is your character that saves entire cities from certain doom, it is your character that holds off armies of undead as they march towards your location; nothing you do is trivial.

But once the main storyline is over, all you're left with is player-versus-player combat, which I personally did not enjoy.There are many strong strategies that people have already figured out for player-versus-player combat, so some battles are more luck than skill.Whenever I played in the player-versus-player arenas, I got the feeling that I was just playing some glorified first person shooter like Unreal Tournament, but with swords and spells.You can go back and try to unlock more items and spells, but this gets very boring and tedious quickly.I tried to play through the main storyline with a different type of character, but didn't find it as enjoyable or engaging as the first run through.

However the main thing makes this game unbearable isn't so much the game mechanics as it is the people who play Guild Wars.There is no community, and you will never see the same person more than one time.Also, in a game that requires a lot of team play and coordination, there is an overabundance of people who simply don't care for tactics and are bound to get your character killed with their carelessness.

The best part of Guild Wars is the fact that there is no monthly fee, and the steaming content that updates as you play.I'm sure ArenaNet will be able to do some interesting things with their streaming content system, but there really wasn't enough substance in the game to keep me hooked for long after I finished the main quest.The player-versus-player combat did not appeal to me, however if you believe that you'll like it, you'll most likely enjoy Guild Wars.If you're going to try this game, I strongly recommend you do so with a group of people that you already know, as there is no player community to speak of.

Better than any MMO EVER!
I've played almost every mmo out there and this game is definately a step above. I thought since there was no monthly fee that there would be a huge lack of content but boy was I wrong!!! I have played it since release and there is so much to do and so many styles of play that I feel I will never grow tired of it. I've cancelled all my monthly fee games to play this one and I haven't regreted it since! ... Read more

Product Description

This game lets you customize your character by choosing species, gender, clothing, and more and then create a custom light saber to do battle against the forces of Darth Vader. ... Read more

Features

• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Genre: Action/Adventure
• Mission: Learn the true ways of the Force from Jedi Master Luke Skywalker
• Platform: Windows 98/98SE/Me/2000/XP

Reviews (92)

firebrand, your pc is a load of rubbish
hey, last time i checked "P4 3.0 Ghz, 512 MB of RAM, and an ATI Radeon X300 SE with 128MB of Video Ram" is NOT a "powerhouse pc". it wasnt even a powerhouse pc 1 year ago. most pc's have been running a gig of ram for over a year. and last time they checked, they had to overclock a 3.6/3,8 ghz p4 processor to like 5ghz to match an fx55, so your processor is crap. 3.4ghz has been the standard for over a year now in most new pc's.
most gamers also use 256mb cards.

also your graphics card is also the cheapest, lowest range card ati do since yours is x300 and they go right up to x850,lol.
plus its a dell, which shows how ignorant you are about "power computers".
so yeah, dont moan and say u got a powerhouse pc, because all u got was a really rubbish spec'd pc, no doubt for a very cheap price from dell.

I CANT WAIT TO GET IT
I want this game so much it sounds like fun espically the plot. Im looking foward to playing out my favorite battle in the series the battle between maul,qui gonn,and obi-wan!!I WANT THIS GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

best internet play ever!!
this games play is good.i was just finished with another game and board so i looked through my games i came acrose jedi academy i thought hmm could be good then i saw the multiplayer option and i was hocked!!! i ended up playing loads this game is ot only fun i realised it was also addictive.starwars fans or people who like slashing people with light sabers this is for you!!!!!!!!

Fun, awesome star wars action, one complaint
first the complaint.I just bought myself a Dell Dimension 8400 with P4 3.0 Ghz, 512 MB of RAM, and an ATI Radeon X300 SE with 128MB of Video Ram.This is a powerhouse computer.

I played Call of Duty, which graphically is a more advanced game than Jedi Academy, and finally had it play perfectly smoothly.It was such fun to do so.I then popped in Jedi Academy to test its performance in a faster environment (before I had a P4 2.0 Ghz, 64 MB NVIDIA GeForce 4, and 256 MB of RAM), and I was disappointed.I put the highest settings (1024x768, 32 bit color, high graphics) and the game ran choppy!I put it on "normal" settings, and the game STILL ran choppy.How is it possible that Call of Duty runs perfect, but Jedi Academy runs choppy?It doesn't make sense...

Anyway, you can set the graphic settings to the lowest (which is what I did), and it will play smoothly, but you won't get any of the graphics benefits.The game, however, is fun.

What happened?!!!?
This game was my introduction to Jedi Knight series. The only Star Wars game I had played before this was Knights of the Old Republic (which I loved). After finishing it I was excited about more Star Wars gaming and I tried Jedi Academy.

The game seemed to be a mixed bag: there was some great things like ability to customize your character and choosing between saber styles. The acrobatics were fantastic. But these alone were not enough to save the game: some of the graphics looked really bad especially outdoor environments. In general everything felt like it was made in great hurry: the textures, lightning and everything felt unpolished. Quake III engine is capable of much better when levels are planned with artistic vision. Character animations in cutscenes looked clumsy and unfinished. But the biggest problem with the game was the story (or the lack of it). Overall the game feels like you had different fan made maps put together.

I know a lot of people probably wanted more lightsaber combat. Well you certainly got that with this game. The problem is that it gets VERY repetitive after a while. In movies the saber fights were used sparingly and always connected to major turning points in the plot. Now it is just endless repetition (didn't I beat this guy already? Like 100 times!!!)

I recently tried Jedi Outcast (the previous game in the serie) and I was SHOCKED to realize just how much better it was in almost every way: the graphics, the plot, the missions all had real touch of quality in it. It seems Raven tried to improve some elements in the game and totally forgot everything that made Jedi Outcast such a classic. Or more likely this product just had to be finished with a real tight deadline. That just how it feels like: an unfinished product which COULD have been great if they had maintained the quality of previous game. I truly recommend Knights of the Old Republic and Jedi Outcast over this. ... Read more

Product Description

DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil continues the terrifying, intense action of DOOM 3, the fastest selling 1st person PC shooter ever, with an all new storyline featuring new missions, characters and weapons, including the return of the id signature double-barreled shotgun.Supported Video Cards:ATI Radeon 8500 ATI Radeon 9700 ATI Radeon 9800 ATI Radeon 9500 ATI Radeon 9600 ATI Radeon 9000 All Nvidia GeForce 3/Ti series All Nvidia GeForce 4/MX series All Nvidia GeForce 4/Ti series All ... Read more

Features

• Single- and multi-player action for ages 17 or older
• Fight back against a demonic invasion of a Mars research facility
• First-person shooter game with real-time dynamic lighting and shadows
• Realistic physics; revolutionary new 3D graphics engine
• Cinema-quality visuals; surround sound; ever-changing environment

Reviews (13)

Not good.
What the hell are you guys talking about? This expansion is terrible. Firstly in the first game you were in a never-ending maze of pitch black corridors that all looked alike. Here, you are in a never-ending maze of pitch black caves that all look alike. But caves are even more boring than metallic corridors. I mean at least the Id guys had to use some textures in the first game. But the guys who did this must have said "I know, lets make it easy on ourselves and only use 1 texture - ReddishBrown to simulate Martian sandstone." Secondly, in the first game you were constantly hit with childish horror-house tactics, eg. you walk into a room, 2 nasties appear in front of you, then the door locks behind you, the lights go out so you can't see a thing and have to fire wildly into the dark, while at the same time you hear that corny "evil" laughter - hehehehehe. Well here, you get exactly the same thing. But for me the worst thing in this expansion is the way they have filled it with platform style "obstacle courses". I hate those. They only put those in games when they've run out of ideas of what to do next. And there are a lot of them in this. You know the idea, where you've got to run before a descending wall crushes you but it is perfectly timed (even with that slow-down-time thingy) so that it takes you 8 attempts before you get it right. Annoying. That kind of thing belongs in Tomb Raider, not Doom.

They learned a thing or two...
I was personally quite pleased with the first installment of Doom 3. Some low points existed, however, for me. Like the whole 'flashlight' gripe about the fact that this is the distant future and you can't even have a flashlight on your gun or helmet like they've done already so many years ago! That was just silly. And obstructive to game play as well. They addressed that here. Sort of an apology for such a ridiculous fumble. Next is the fact that while there was an assortment of 'baddies' in the first game, too many of the same-ones were thrown at you of a few sorts, while others were barely even used. This games addresses that as well. You get a nice array of new demons to kill while a few of the lesser used ones were re-introduced into this program. This program is a tad shorter than Doom 3 in my experience. But, that's O.K. with me. Too much of a good thing can go sour. You revisit a few of the locales from the first installment. But, not so many that it feels like exactly the same game. The extra weapon was nice. Familiar when compared to the weapon in Half-Life 2. But, executed very nicely. The ending was very weak. However, i personally believe that they are making room for another add-on in the near future. So, Valve did one-up the original in a lot of ways, but the fear factor is a little bit lost. As the sounds and environments feel similar to the first in an atmospheric way. So, if you've played the 'hell' out of the first, you get a 'been-there-done-that' kind of feeling when you spot another demon in the dark. But, this did have a few moments for me where i had to stop it for a short while. It can get intense.

Double-barreled Savior
I liked Doom3, maybe a little too dark, but my eyes adjusted.This expansion pack wasn't much of an expansion, way too short even for $20!Living in the boondocks and all it probably took me longer to drive to the store buy it, get home and install it than it took for me to beat it, that just blows in my book.I didn't mind the fact that it was pretty much the exact same game because I really did like D3.I find it entertaining running around and mindlessly blowing $hit up.The one part that really saved D3 ROE was the fact that they made up for ID's slip - no double-barreled shotgun!What the hell, it was a great step up in Doom 2 and that crappy version they made for N64, I thought it was a guarantee that we would have been able to use it for the newest addition to the Doom family, but no.I mean come on, it's become a staple in ID's games since Doom 2, why the change?Maybe I'm flippin' out too much about a fake shotgun, but I'm sometimes like an autistic child, I'm very easily amused and upset (I'm going to hell for that one).Bottom line if you are willing to pay $20 for another 5 hours of Doom 3 go for it, otherwise the changes aren't that significant where you won't be able to live your life if you miss it.On a side note, if anyone knows where I can get a mod to use the double-barreled shotgun for D3 e-mail me or post it here. (johnkleineider@northwesternmutual.com) No complaint e-mails about my autistic crack, thanks.

I call that Resurrection of Crap
So, they did manage to squezee out an expansion pack for the DOOM3. I just finished the game today and I have to say that I am utterly disappointed.
First of all, let's talk about the original doom3, with all the poor ratings from mags aside, my personaly experience is poor. There's no doubt that the graphic is surperier, however most times you wont' even get a glimps of the glory, the entire set is way too dark for a video game, at some places even with the "never dying" flashlight you still can't see your own fingers. The story line is pretty simple, no something you would expect from a newer generations of hardcore games, especially from veterian developers such as ID software. I think they focued way too much on the details on the graphics of the games instead of develop a well ploted classic, and may I remaid you that you can't see the nice graphics most of the time!!!
Second of all, the expansion pack. To start off with, I think the game really did finish last time with D3, oh crap, the bad escaped at the end. What's gonna happen? He's gonna come back and cause another Hell return. That's where the expansion pack start. Needless to say, the plot was dry and boring, (IT'S EVEN DARKER THAN THE FIRST ONE). So you go through all these elevators killing monsters mostly from the first one. with the addition of one common one that throws plasma lightbulb instead of fireball. WOW, what an improvement!!! GUNS?? usually the expansion pack come with many new and improved gears and toys to crunch your thirst for blood. The D3 ROE comes with a new "shotgun" that has double barrel and ... wait, that's it! yeh, sorry to disappoint yall, but that was it. Oh yeah... You can't just give us royal fans just one gun for the expansion pack right? Let's borrow an idea from another game HL2, the grabber, you can grab and throw back! How original! For people who hasn't played HL2 before, this might just work as ID's IDEA.
Last but certainly not least, the ending, I can't say too much about the ending, but i can tell you this much, I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT IS DONE when it's done. short and simple, no thinking or other mind twisting strategies, there's isn't even a goshdarn final clip. I mean come on, even the lamest movies have something blow up at the end. THINK ID! THINK!
Ok, i gave it 4 stars from graphics when you can see them, 0 for darkness 'cause what's the point of rating if you dont' know what you are looking at? 1 for storyline since there's really not much to it. and 0 or -1 for the ending. Man, I just can't believe i wasted time for this Resurrection of crap. (try it if you want, if you are really bored)

Resurrection of Blandness
During the writing of this review I'm experiencing the same creative block that the developers obviously experienced when upper management told them to squeeze an expansion out of their rectums. Unlike them, however, I will not resort to stealing random ideas from other games (mainly the grabber, ie the equivelant ofHalf-Life 2's gravity gun) and covering the mess with lots of eye candy and dim lighting. ... Read more

Product Description

The year is 2008.

Citywide blackouts ... stock exchange sabotageelectronic hijacking of national defense systems...this is information warfare.

To prevent these attacks, operatives must infiltrate deep into hostile territory and aggressively collect critical intelligence, closer than ever to enemy soldiers.

You are Sam Fisher, the NSA's most elite black-ops agent. To achieve your mission you will kill from close-range, attack with your combat knife, shoot with the prototype Land Warrior rifle, and use radical suppression techniques such as the inverted neck break. Also take on cooperative multiplayer infiltration missions, where teamwork is the ultimate weapon.

As the enemy evolves, so must you.

• DEADLY AGILITY: Incredibly complete and fluid variety of moves including athletic moves, stealth moves, stealth kills.
• REAL WEAPONS OF TOMORROW: The most complete arsenal of weapons and gadgets from the knife to the experimental Land Warrior System.
• AS GOOD AS REAL: Never see before graphics technology offers the best visuals ever seen on any console yet. Advanced physics engine allowing rag doll physics, particle effects and perfect interaction with the environment.
• ULTIMATE CHALLENGE: Intelligent A.I with personal attributes, natural behavior where NPCs are aware of there environment and remember past events.
• AMAZING REPLAYABILITY: Totally open level design with multipaths and optional secondary objectives.
• COOP STEALTH: Play multiplayer with a friends and coordinate your infiltration in an all new multiplayer challenge

Reviews (13)

A must have buy.
I have played all the Splinter Cell games now after being hooked in by the Pandorra Tomorrow Demo. Chaos theory is a little easier than the previous games though I have only tried it on the 'normal' difficulty. Presumably the higher difficulties will be the way to play this game if you any experience on the series. The 'Starforce' protection issue is something however that you will need to consider. It hasn't caused issues with either my CD-RW/DVD combo drive or my DVD-RW and I have cloned my DvD's without any issues. Nevertheless removing it could be a problem for you so you may want to think about this. Personally I find this better than Steam anyday. Half-Life was such a pain to get going and in the end a slightly better than mediocre game that I decided never to go with valve again. Chaos Theory however is the best game I have had on my system since Far Cry. Not sure why others are having troubles with performance. It runs fine on my PC at 1024x768 with a 2.8ghz P4, a ATI 9600 Extreme (AGP 8X) and 1GM dual channel RAM, running with 2x Anti-Aliasing and 4x Anistropic filtering. There is sufficent performance to run the game at this level and leave bittorrent running as well. If your system is similar then you shouldn't have any troubles. The game looks great. The only downside to using the ATI card is the game downgrades to 1.1 shaders. The nVidia card supports shaders 3.0 so it may look better but I haven't seen it run on nVidia. Either way it looks right up there with Far Cry and half-life 2 so I wouldn't worry either way if you have ATI. The mission format is the same as the previous game and although there has been an attempt to create multiple paths the game is still fairly linear.As I have mentioned the game on 'normal' does feel somewhat easier than previous versions however all in all this is a ripper title that you shouldn't miss if you found any joy in the previous incarnations.

too bad its third-person perspective
I only tried to play the demo. But I have to say right up front that the third-person perspective hurts this game. Having extensively played another stealth game called Thief, from the first-person perspective, I find the third-person perspective of Splinter Cell downright unacceptable. Perhaps the game maker will see the light and go first-person in the next game.

I also found that this game taxed my computer. I have a 2.6 GHz computer with a 128MB video card, but the game video was sticky even at 800x600 resolution. I think that if we could get rid of watching the player's character from the third-person perspective and instead use a first-person perspective, this might alleviate some of the video problem.

Improved gameplay, awesome gaming experience
For those who played the previous Splinter Cells, you don't want to miss #3, and for those who have never played any S.C., here's your chance to catch up.
The overall gameplay is improved, with more moves and more possiblities, and so are the graphics, which are just fantastic.
As a reference, I am playing this with a Nvidia 6600GT and 1GB of RAM, and it looks absolutely gorgeous while being perfectly fluid.
The only critic I would have so far is that, once again, the solo campaign is too short. It's so enjoyable that it's a shame it can't last (the new possible moves and choices, like breaking locks, contribute to that unfortunately).
Other than that, that's a classic, run for it, you won't be disappointed.

Great game... too bad
This is an otherwise excellent game that unfortunately uses the intrusive copy protection software known as Starforce.Normally I don't care a whit about copy protection, but Starforce installs itself as a hidden hardware driver and sits between your IDE / SATA hardware and the operating system.This causes all kinds of system glitches, crashes, slowdowns and on occasions requires a complete reinstall of Windows.Much of this comes from careless and poor programming - but the truth is, as long as the game is protected, the publishers don't care at all what happens to your system.This attitude makes little sense, really since it only takes about a month for the latest protection schemes to be broken anyway.

Oh, and as an added bonus, the Starforce garbage remains on your system even after you uninstall the game.And the Starforce folks won't tell you how to remove it.

Best in series, co-op can be buggy
After being disappointed by Pandora Tomorrow's thoroughly mediocre single player campaign, I was highly skeptical of this title. However, Chaos Theory is vastly improved over its predecessors in every way. The level design is much better, production values rival any game on any platform, and the co-op mode is a fantastic addition to the series - provided it actually works. If the co-op mode had a few more levels and hadn't been so terribly buggy, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory would have been the best PC game in years. As it stands, it is still one of the finest stealth/action games ever made, and every fan of the genre should own it.

The cornerstone of this game is still the single player campaign. The previous titles have featured strictly linear levels with small maps. Chaos Theory features much larger maps and a much larger degree of freedom. It also boasts a much higher degree of interactivity with the environment. The levels are still not open-ended by a long shot. They are best described as "semi-linear". Each level features a linear series of mini-challenges that usually have two or three solutions to them. You might be able to enter a room through the front door or by a vent that comes from a storage room, but you still end up in the same place. On average though, the design and flow of the levels is excellent. The game keeps you moving towards your objectives without ever making you feel like you are on rails. The best part about each level is the size. The levels are very large and typically last you an hour or more, depending upon your style of gameplay. The game's ten levels will probably take you between 10 and 15 hours to finish.

Each level also contains one or more optional objectives, and a scoring system that rates you based upon how many alarms you set off and how many objectives you accomplish. This system works much better than the "three alarms and you fail" or "one alarm and you fail" system of the previous games. It also gives you incentive to replay each mission until you achieve a perfect score.

In addition to the better level design, the single play game features some other improvements. Chief among them is much improved audio - namely, a huge number of sound bites and well-written lines of dialog. The terrific voice acting from the first game has returned. You can interrogate most guards, and most of the interrogation dialog offers some amusing moments, as well as some useful gameplay tips. The atmospheric sound is superb as well. The terrific audio complements the game's gorgeous visuals, which easily rank amongst the best that the PC has to offer. Sam is decked out in detail all over his body and all of his moves look very cool. The environments are beautiful and the lighting is simply perfect. Chaos Theory sports arguably the finest production values in any PC game to date.

Does the gameplay have any faults? A few. One of them is inconsistency in the AI. The sharpness of the AI occasionally changes, based upon the level. Sometimes guards won't notice if their buddy gets knocked out three feet away from them. Other times, they will notice their KO'ed buddy when he is in complete darkness 35 feet away. Another minor flaw is that the game favors an overly aggressive approach versus a nonlethal approach. For most of the levels, You will have to self-impose a "no-kill" rule to give yourself some challenge.Also, like its predecessors, the campaign lacks lasting value, and the story is average.

Once you are done with the single player campaign, a true treat awaits you on-line with the game's innovative co-op mode. This assumes that you can actually get it to work. More on that later. The game mechanics of the co-op mode are largely the same as the single-player campaign, only this time you have a partner, and there are more guards. The game also throws some high walls at you that can only be scaled using special co-op moves. For example, you can give your friend a boost to the top of a wall, and then he can let you climb up his back to get up over it. The result is usually quite thrilling. The co-op mode is full of "you take the guy on the right and I'll take the guy on the left" moments. Quietly taking out a room full of guards with your buddy is an experience that is a unique and very memorable This part of the game is a long, long overdue addition to this genre, and you will probably be left hoping for an exclusively co-op game in the future.

Unfortunately, the co-op mode is riddled with so many bugs that there is less than a 50% chance that you'll actually be able to play it. Ubisoft has patched the game twice, but I wouldn't rely on being able to play co-up just yet. Plus, there are also only four co-op levels, and you can't save your progress. If these issues didn't exist, Chaos Theory would be worthy of a 9.3+ score. Nonetheless, co-op mode adds a lot to the overall package and helps elevate the game to elite status.

"Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory" has breathed new life into a series that was on the risk of going stale. It sets high standards for production values and, in the meantime, provides an innovative new gameplay mode. The single player is by far the best of the series, and co-op is pure ecstasy --- if you can actually get it to work. As an added bonus, you can get the DVD-ROM version for this game, instead of some clumsy 5-CD job.Sooner or later, you should own "Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory". ... Read more

Product Description

Contains Call of Duty and the expansion pack Call of Duty: United Offensive. Call of Duty Developed by Infinity Ward - a newly formed studio including 22 of the individuals, and all of the production leads, who developed the critically acclaimed PC title Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - Call of Duty is the most immersive first-person action game yet.Call of Duty delivers the gritty realism and cinematic intensity of war as never before.For the first time, Call of Duty capture ... Read more

Features

• Call of Duty
• Play as American, British and Russian soldiers.
• Battle through 24 missions spanning 4 interconnected historical campaigns.
• Take on mission objectives ranging from sabotage and all-out assault to stealth, vehicle combat and rescue.
• Authentic weapons, locations, vehicles and sounds of war all contribute to the realism, immersing you in the most intense World War II experience yet.Call of Duty: United Offensive

Reviews (2)

For Mac users - this Edition is Not the Version for the Mac
Amazon made a mistake and put down that this version is for the Macintosh OS X operating system in addition to Windows.That is not the case.Activision does not release games on the MAC platform.They work with other, third party companies to do so.Aspyr is the company that makes Call of Duty on the Mac.Search for games by Aspyr and you'll find it there.

Just an FYI so Mac users don't buy the wrong game.

Possibly the Greatest War Games Ever Made!
If you've played it, then you know. If you haven't, give it a try. You won't be disappointed. Think of the HBO series Band of Brothers. Or the movies Saving Private Ryan and Enemy at the Gates. Single player and multi-player modes are equally excellent. ... Read more

Product Description

The game that started it all is back and badder than ever! Graphically enhanced and developed with NovaLogics latest game engine, Delta Force: RELOADED not only enhances a proven winner, but ads to it, offering seasoned Delta Force fanatics and FPS fans new to the franchise, a fresh prospective on the game that broke the mold in modern combat FPS games. ... Read more

Features

• As a member of the elite Delta Force, re-deploy in over 20 graphically enhanced single-player missions the best of the best from the original game
• Additional new single-player missions created especially for Delta Force: Reloaded add a new challenge for hardened Delta Operators
• Take your friends into battle in over 25
• co-operative missions
• Over 20

Reviews (3)

excellent remake!!!
I played the original Delta Force years ago and I really liked it.I love this one!!It's a reload of the original but it does come with a few downers.Getting extra health and ammo is easy just look for the red and blue boxes on your gps or map.There are extra missions and this one is challenging but not too challenging or you might have to work to hard to play the game lol!It does need save points and a few more health power ups since bad guys come from out of nowhere and wax you.You can't assume you've cleared a part of the map or territory or you'll get waxed.For anyone into FPS I very highly recommend this one!!!!Besides needing save points it could also use a few more weapons.There is a mp5sd3 but no mission truly allows it.

Chad S

Good Game But Too Short
Though this game is very fun to play, it is also very short (20 single player missions). But the multiplayer is also fun. This game is short because the company didnt spend too much time on this. If you loved delta force 1, you will love this even more. If you just want to play the single player missions then you should rent this game. There also might be an expansion for it. Anyways deffinetly try this game out.

A chance to re-live a fond gaming experience.
Delta Force: XTreme is a re-make of the excellent original "Delta Force", which was released in 1998. They've pulled the best levels out of the original game and ported them over to NovaLogic's latest graphic's engine, along with adding some more levels. And the results are amazing! From the moment I was plopped into Mission one (the same Mission One from the original game), I was in heaven. I hadn't played the game since 98, so the nostalgia I felt was palpable. It was so fun to be able to play through that very familiar level with the superb graphics, which bear a strong resemblance to the FarCry graphics, only with even longer draw-distances. And if you can see a place, you can go there. You can travel for miles out of your way if you want to. Truly open-ended.

I liken the gameplay to Operation Flashpoint. It's pretty difficult and there doesn't appear to be a way to save your game. However, it does give you the option if you are killed, to re-start the level with full ammo and the enemies you've killed already dead. But that felt kinda like cheating. I'd have preferred a save-anywhere scheme, or at the very least, a couple of save points would help. As it is, it's very difficult, which adds to the tension. I kinda actaully like it that way really, since it forces me to be careful, however the option to choose a save scheme would be appreciated for those who can't live without it.

Enemies appear in droves, and come from all over at the sound of gunfire. You're best off to lie down in prone position and try to pick them off. However, I have not yet found a way to get more ammo. There is no manual with this game. One mission I started with 300 rounds, and that's it baby. I couldn't grab more from fallen enemies or find any anywhere. By pure luck, I finished the mission as my ammo meter reached zero. There may be a way to get ammo that I don't know about, but I haven't found it.

I haven't tried multiplayer yet. Though I am greatly looking forward to playing the 25 included co-op levels with my brother over NovaWorld. The last time we did that was when Delta Force: Land Warrior came out, and that was a blast. At the time, we loved NovaWorld. It was stable, and I'm amazed to see it's still around after all these years.

NovaLogic has been around a long time too. They've been making great games since I bought my first computer. Not many game companies are left from that era, and it's a testament to their dedication to all their games, both old and new. Nothing is abandoned. If you're a fan of an old NovaLogic game, there's still help and support on their website for you. ... Read more

Features

• Bomb damage may or may not be repaired, depending on enemy resources and command.
• Pilot three different variants of the F-16 Fighting Falcon.
• Shoot a variety of air-to-air missiles like the AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-9 Sidewinder.
• Simulate an entire war with the most advanced and truly dynamic campaign engine ever made for your PC.
• Participate in cooperative or adversarial multi-player flight over a LAN or internet.

Product Description

Dotted about the landscape are tribes of human-type creatures. From a perspective high above the clouds you can zoom in to watch these individuals going about their daily business. Just by observing them, you will find they live "natural" lives with virtually every aspect of village life built in. Not only will the villagers plough, hunt and fish, but they will visit friends, play games, fall in love, and get married. A full range ... Read more

Features

• Choose the sharp-toothed Crocodile, the mighty horned Rhinoceros, or any of the creatures from the original game to act as your representative on Creature Island
• Your creature gains an apprentice and a pet as it is tasked with the care of the little tyke
• Your creature falls head-over-heels for the beautiful Eve and must win her favor by completing her labors of love
• Set off with your creature to explore the many wonders of Creature Isle and Graduation Island
• Teach your creature a variety of new skills, including bowling, building, and playing soccer

Reviews (23)

Fun, but a lot of work
I just recently got this game in preperation for B&W 2.When I first started playing it, I absolutely loved it and would have easily given it 5 stars.After playing it for a while, I got annoyed and overwhelmed at the micro management and would have reviewed it probably at about 2 stars.But now after getting used to it and 30 plus hours of play, I think 4 is right.

The game starts out with a very helpful tutorial that shows you the basic controls, how to cast spells, and taking care of the people.You later pick the creature you want and it helps you in training him and taking care of him also.After you get through that, you then go to a town where you will need to start your own civilization.This is where you may get frustrated because your people always need food, homes, children, andbuildings.A smart thing to do is build plenty farms before bulding homes or children no matter how much they complain because eventually there will not be enough food in the few farms to supply the villige store (where the food and wood is stocked) so you will be constantly hovering over the store supplying food (very annoying).With the Deluxe version of B&W, it comes with several patches that fixes a ton of problems.One major issue that it will fix is that your wirshippers will not eat like horses any more so you will get to pay less attention to them.Install these before playing the game because it comes in as a HUGE help.

There are 2 things that kept me from giving this game 5 stars even after disliking it so much at first.
One is that it crashes every few times I play.Sometimes it will go for hours on end without a jitter but sometimes it will crash twice within 5 minutes.I am running it on a Windows 98 PC with 512MB RAM and an old NVIDIA Video card.The game is from 2001 so it does OK.I also installed it on my newer Dell PC that has 1.5 Gigs of RAM, Windows XP,and the newest ATI graphics card.I started an evil god on it and it has not crashed once.Some are saying that the game does not run on XP, but it does fine with me.
The second thing that kept me from giving 5 stars is the part of the game I am on now.I'm not going to say much to keep from ruining the game for some of you but this level of the game is really ticking me off.Every time I get a few buildings built they get burned!!!I dont have enough villigers to give me enough prayer power to constantly cast shield miracles because my people are getting stolen!!!I don't know what to do.Maybe I'm doing something wrong or not doiing something I should but it is really making me mad.Earlier in the game on another level, I had just gotten a big enough population to start to convert another village ( you have a realm of influence based on the amount of people that you have in your town. You connot do anything outside that realm. Therefore, the more people you have the bigger your influence realm will be).I was performing miriacles for them when I started hearing the word "death" and my conscience guy said that we were being attacked.I went back to my villiage and there was a lightning storm stricking my town center.Every time the lighting would hit it, it would catch on fire.My villiagers would run to put it out when another lighting bolt would hit, catching everyone around it on fire.They would die so more people would run to the fire to put it out and they to would be set aflame!It finally stopped dtorming but I ended up losing about 70% of my population with my influence realm very small again.After that I went to the setup menu in the game and downloaded the realtime weather that was happening outside my own home (it was snowing) so that did not happen again.This is a cool feature to use if you want to make the weather in the game be more realistic to what you are seeing out your own window.

This game has a very steep learning curve.It has a lot of micromanagement to deal with so you will never be sitting back watching things take place.I reccommend this game to one who has a lot of time and a ton of patience.So if you decide to get the game, have fun and good luck.

If you have Windows98/ME and A LOT of Ram, you need see this
I saw some people have problems running this game.If your system is Windows98/ME and you have more than 512 MB memory in stalled, you need to see this ... otherwise you will get game crashes more frequently ... not just in Black & White, but other games as well. You need to follow the workaround method as follows.

I first come across this knowledge from www.nvidia.com FAQ : Windows 98 and ME were based on the original Windows 95 kernel which was never designed for handling a lot of memory. These systems will experience various operational difficulties if more than 512MB physical memory is installed. These problems are due to how the 32-bit protected-mode cache driver (VCache) for Windows 9x/ME reserves memory.With more than 512MB memory, VCache may reserve most of the virtual addresses available.This issue does not affect Microsoft Windows XP or Windows 2000. Directions for correcting this problem are outlined in Microsoft's Knowledge Base article number 253912:[...]

CAUSE :
The Windows 32-bit protected-mode cache driver (Vcache) determines the maximum cache size based on the amount of RAM that is present when Windows starts, or 800MB, whichever is less. Vcache then reserves enough memory addresses to permit it to access a cache of the maximum size so that it can increase the cache to that size if needed.. These addresses are allocated in a range of virtual addresses from 0xC0000000 through 0xFFFFFFFF (virtual address occupy between 3 gigabyte and 4 gigabyte area - a space of only 1 gigabytes) known as the system arena.

On computers with large amounts of RAM, the maximum cache size can be large enough that Vcache consumes nearly all of the addresses in the system arena, leaving little virtual memory addresses available for other system process.

This problem may occur more readily with Advanced Graphics Port (AGP) video adapters because the AGP aperture is also mapped to addresses in the system arena. For example, if Vcache is using a maximum cache size of 800 MB and an AGP video adapter has a 128-MB aperture mapped, there is very little address space remaining for the other system code and data that must occupy this range of virtual addresses.


WORKAROUND :

- Add the MaxFileCache line as follows in the System.ini file to reduce the maximum cache size that Vcache uses to 512 MB (512x1024 =524288 KB. Note: The value for these settings are in kilobytes) or less :
[VCache]
MaxFileCache=524288

- Then reboot computer to have setting take effect. You should suffer FAR LESS crashes in many games. Your game can still crash, though.But it will be due to other problems - game bugs, drivers too old, etc.

XP?This is how.
This game is very fun. To get it to run you should install these 2 things:Service pack 2 and Black and White patch 1.2. Also I would recomend on XP that you have 192MEGS of RAM instead of 64. Now the game: You play as a god. You quickly see a angel and monster hanging around that are your good and evil consinese. They provide some advice. Basiclly you help people or scare/kill them. You quickly choose from a creature.You can choose from a nurturing cow, a smart ape,and a strong tiger. No matter what creature you choose you will probally want to train it to be violent or peacefull. In the game you come across several sidequests. Yet later in the game you can learn miracles, which your creature can learn to. My 2 problems are: The creatures take forever to grow, and gestures(a way of casting miracles)are hard to cast.

No, it really doesn't work.
I have Windows XP and no matter what I did, even following all the little helpful guides provided online and by the company, this game never ran correctly on my computer.

I've been wanting to play this game since it first came out but now after buying the original edition, this deluxe edition and the game guide, I have a bunch of useless software and paper on my hands. A total waste of money for me and probably for most XP owners too.

Yes it does work on xp
oh ya and yes this game does work on xp maby its somthing with your settings or something ... Read more

Product Description

After Archimonde and the Burning Legion were defeated at the battle of Mount Hyjal, a new threat rises throughout the land and it's up to you to defeat it. ... Read more

Features

• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Genre: Strategy
• Mission: Experience a vast new chapter in the epic Warcraft saga
• Platform: Mac OS 9.0 or higher, OS 10.1.3 or higher; Windows 98/Me/2000/XP

Reviews (88)

Great addition to a great game!
When I first went to my friend's house to play Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, I had lots of fun! I didn't enjoy the normal maps too much, sadly, and I wasn't really looking forward to buying the game.

Then, I went online with my free Battle.net account and downloaded a player-made map. I really loved the map, so I decided I'd save up and buy Warcraft 3. The game kept me entertained on and off. I'd play it for hours on end, then I'd stop for about 2 weeks, then go back to play it again! New maps are made almost every week, as players love to find fame. I, myself, have made a number of maps.

Anyway, when my friend got the expansion pack, I played a few Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne maps at his house. WOW! They were great! I couldn't stand having the game without the expansion! So, I got my allowance, and bought the expansion!

I recommend this to anyone who likes RTSes (real-time strategies) or even people who DISlike them, because the game could be called an "Action\Adventure Role-Playing Strategy Sports Driving Sim" or something! It's a multi-genre!

good stuff
this is definatly a good expansion set, just like the regular Warcraft3 itself. if you beat the first one, i suggest you buy this. graphics improved, more gameplay, and more fun. online action is great, including 1 new hero per race. i love this game and so does everyone i know who owns it.

1 year of frozenthrone playing and im not yet tired of it
Alright people that think this game is boring and it should have a Naga race and a Drenei race is stupid. I mean it would be pretty fun, but it would take lots of balancing and stuff so...no. Humans, nighrelves, undead, and orc are enough and the game is fun enough with out those other 2 races. I mean u can still play as adrenei or naga in the single player...and even on custom games...i was playing open rpg islands and i was a naga and i was swimmin anround shootin things with the naga seaweitch. The game really isnt that hard to play when u get used to it. Heros make everythign so intense and exciting which is why when ur fighting the enemy you really should take out the hero then work on the units.

The thing that i kinda hate about warcraft frozen throne and warcraft roc is the blademaster...cheap crap. he just got cheaper in this patch i mean now he can run through my units. Im always undead...and if youve been undead race u know what im talking about. Death to that dam blademaster. BUT finaly, they just got 2 new heros in a patch a alchemist and a firelord. I am very impressed with the alchemist he can take on the bladeamster pretty well.Anyways, people been saying how starcraft is better then warcraft and im like why? they say because its too shiney. I'm like ok...period over gotta go to enxt epriod...get this game ur kids will liek it buy it!! wee!!!!!!!!!!!Sinferno rulez!!!

Tried and true style of game works yet again
There really isn't much original about the Warcraft 3 game, and its expansion Frozen Throne campaign.It's yet another clone of itself/StarCraft/Ages Of Empires, etc. etc. etc. where you build, upgrade, build some more, upgrade, start sending your forces out, upgrade, replenish your forces, upgrade, repel enemies that may be attacking your base(s), start wiping out major concentrations of enemies, replenish your forces and complete any upgrades not already made, and finish off all your enemies.This has been done a hundred times before, and I'm sure it's not the last strategy game which will use the same method.The hero unit in Warcraft is cool, though.

The game is really easy to start, and gently eases you into the game.The cutscene movies are incredible, the best I've ever seen in a game.It's hard to say which campaign was the best, but I'd have to say it's a toss up between the Orc and Night Elf ones.I didn't like the Undead campaign, but the summoning of buildings was kinda neat.

I did get tired of hearing "Frostmourne hungers" everytime I moved my Undead hero, though.

the beast at this game beassssssssst
Warcraft is my favorite computer game. It has a lot of fun especially when you kill your allies. I'm level 100 because I play every minute of my life except for now and when I'm at school. When I play nobody messes with me. I'm the best person you could find on the game except for my brother. You should definitely buy this game. ... Read more

Features

• Exclusive in game pet
• Play the full game on both CD-ROM and DVD-ROM
• 1 month subscription to World of Warcraft
• 200 plus page hardcover art book
• World of Warcraft Behind the Scenes DVD

Reviews (409)

World of Warcraft
This game starts out very impressive:
1. Immersive graphics
2. you can craft items right away
3. Huge variety of nice-looking monsters and areas to explore
4. Similar variety of quests
5. you get a few points for exploring stuff

However, I have a 55 priest and a few assorted 30+ chars, and some parts are so bad I am forced to pay $16/mo because I keep doing month to month with the idea I will not stay with it much longer.

Bad Parts
1. Support, in game and email is so poor as to be laughable.My petitions are consistently not answered; my emails are met with non-applicable form letters.
2. Their download servers are a joke.On update days, my friend and I play City of Heroes, because we got tired of waiting 4 hours for their cheap download servers to feed us a few KB.Sometimes the download just plain does not work for a couple of days, and you cannot play without the update.Blizzard seems kind of "Hey, that's too bad but it goes with MMORP territory; now hand us your money."
3. Their infrastructure is inexcusable for a pay per month game.Every time they have a patch release or a busy spell, their "realms" are unusable, and all their web pages, account support, boards, etc go down.Are they running in a basement?
4. When you do manage to get on a server, you can expect frequent "lag" delays, even on machines like mine, with 1.5 GB of memory, and 3.2 GHz HT, and Nvidia 6800.They have a lag-time display in game, that "always" shows low latency (Green), even when you are lagging so bad you get disconnected.That's very helpful.
5. Don't play this for challenging PvP action; it's not going to happen.My 55 priest is on a PvP server, so I know what I'm talking about.95% of battles are ridiculously lopsided, with a level 55 / 60 team coming up behind a level 10, and killing them when they are almost dead in the middle of a fight with other monsters.Needless to say, there's no sense of honor or challenge in any aspect of most of these battles.As a general rule, you will rarely be attacked by people your own level or attack people your own level.Don't expect to get much done on PvP servers some days, except fighting other players (if you want to call a 3 second 60 vs 40 gank a fight)I would stick with a PvE server, that's where I play 90% of the time now, despite being almost 60 (max).
6. The variety of costumes in game is pretty weak, and the selections are typically a bit old-fashioned and prudish.Most characters look pretty much the same as others of their race.If you want variety of costumes, then pick up City of Heroes.
7. Trade / Profession Skills are not good.Enchanting is one of the toughest skills to move up in the game.I have a 266 enchanting skill that's basically worthless.Their skill system was full of variety and excitement early, but as you advance through the levels, what you can make becomes increasingly weak comparatively and crazy expensive.Don't spend a lot of time on their crafting system like I did.It takes a ton of time to move up, and you will end up not using it once you get to max level.Who wants a +5 enchantment on a sword that does 200 damage, for 20 gold?Nobody who gives it 10 seconds thought, is the answer.There's no reason to spend the money to go to max skill.Spend the money on a better sword.Gold is too hard to come by in this game to make the skills usable once they get this expensive.I would pick a skill like skinning animals or herb gathering, and focus on selling supplies to make money that you will desperately need.If you pick enchanting, use it only to dis-enchant items for components, that's what the majority of the people in my last two guilds are doing.Stick to quests (and PvP if you are the type of person that loves killing people way below your level).
8. The monster re-population is offensive and unrealistic.Blizzard thinks nothing of having 10 orcs appear around you suddenly, even if you are fighting another group at that location and almost dead.With lag, they pretty much start attacking instantly, despite what their documentation says.City of Heroes is a lot better in this respect.If they sense you are in aggro-range, they hold off on making the mobs appear out of thin air within sword distance.These sudden appearances are so unrealistic as to hurt the immersiveness of the game at times.
9. Every monster in the game is faster than you are.You will feel slower than you are rl, and not able to climb as steep of grades.That's their way of making the game challenging.
10.Priests and Druids draw aggro with heals and shields.I don't know of any other set of designers that's this stupid.Consequently, you will never be able to find enough priests and druids for groups.When battle gets rough, all the monsters run to the priest if they heal too much.The priest has cloth armor.The priest dies, the party dies.That's been a pretty common cycle.If you go priest, consider "Shadow", offensive path.One of the high-level priests in my guild pretty much refuses to heal, because you also don't get good "honor" (big joke) points for healing people, unlike for PvP kills.Would you want to draw monsters to you, die a lot, and not get credit for it?One of my MMO frequenter friends stopped playing this one after 3 weeks, claiming "they don't understand classes and balance".I have to say, she has a point, and she is having fun with her previous MMO for all too many hours.I go back there too, when this game drives me too crazy :)

That being said, I'm still playing so far, on PvE (Player vs Environment, not player), because there is a lot to do and amazing depthIt's a big world, and it feels realistic at those times that a 6 foot beast doesn't suddenly appear standing on your shoes :)

It's so fun at the early levels that I would definitely recommend playing it for a while.Despite how irritating the bad parts are, it's an awesome game.Just keep the shortcomings in mind and don't expect too much, especially from the PvP system, which is the worst in the market, imho.

World Of Warcraft...more then just a game
This the best game i have ever played frist you kill monesters do quests just like and other RPG but add to this: you can do it with other players.
there are also great trade skills to every thing from Makeing a Epic Admante Sword from long lost plans to Enchanting Bracers with spells of Protection
and Even after you have done Every thing Else you can think of in this game (wich may take you a year or too) you can still have fun with your Friends with the slash comands such as
/burp in the face of your Enmeys /slap those you offend you or get drunk and /dance on a Table (waring Magic Beer may have unwanted SideEfficts) you can /beg for gold or your life
(some funny things like:/hug ..."You Need a Hug") you can /flex your arms or /moon your Enmeys and Much Much more

One more thing . . .
It is not made clear mentioned anywhere but not only does one pay 45.00 for the software, they must pay for monthly access to the game system which means $$$ over time.This may not be acceptable to some.

A fun game, but can get boring real quick
First of all, Ive never played a MMORPG before nor ever heard of such of a brand.That was when Wow came into being and, immediatly, I became intoxicated with it.Now as some of you know this is a very simple, very easy game to get into.Blizzard has gone beyond the call of duty and has brought us what could be the most thrilling and comefortable experience we can ever have in an MMORPG.However, heres a big 'but', what you do too well can ruin you in the future.Now I know not everyone will quite get into this game right off the bat, but some do, I just wanna note something.You know how some people wanna reach lvl 60 so they feel all mighty and all later on? Well your in for a nasty surprise.Once you hit 60 theres no going back; youll find yourself in dungeon raids which isnt much fun at all, you wont get anymore XPs (oops), you be making alts just to feel like theres a new adventure, and youll find yourself farming the hell out of an area just sos you can go about affording the epic mount.I hope that Honor Systems and Battlegrounds Blizzards has made will come in and save the day, cause in a short while those community sites will look pretty empty, and some of us dont wanna see our friends go away when we need them the most.

I used to make fun of you people....
.... My roommate had an addiction. She was addicted to evercrack (everquest). I used to make so much fun of her and call her a geek and whatnot. Then she bought WOW and now she has got me hooked. I guess I will see you at the next star trek convention. ... Read more

Product Description

This Game Card offers a whole new way to experience The Star Wars Galaxy without using a credit card and it also makes a great gift. ... Read more

Features

• Pre-Paid 60 day subscription to Star Wars Galaxies
• One card packed inside a standard PC box
• 4 different collectable cards featuring your favorite classic Star Wars characters
• Requires Star Wars Galaxies online game (sold separately)

Reviews (12)

swg d.o.a. of cu 4/26/05
cancelled ROTW expansion when CU hit.
cancelled SWG days later.
CU= death of SWG, and everyone knows it.

WE WILL NOT PAY TO BETA TEST A PIECE OF S#$% GAME SOE.

CU Destroyed SWG
There has been a great disturbance in the Force, as though thousands of players cried out against the SWG "Combat Upgrade," and were silenced.

Star Wars Galaxies used to be an extremely fun, engaging game.However, as of the end of April 2005, the game has completely changed.Just read some of the other reviews here talking about the so-called "Combat Upgrade."SOE is losing a lot of customers because they ruined Star Wars Galaxies.Now, it's just a cheap EverQuest 2 clone with Star Wars skins.If you want to play fun Star Wars games, try Knights of the Old Republic and Knights of the Old Republic 2.

DON'Twaste your money!!!!
Here's an honest question then... I went to 6 different MAJOR cities and NONE I say NO ONE was grouping and I play in one of the most crowded galaxies)... so what am I suppose to do? I'm level 80 andgrinding Jedi (village points)... so I think ok ill give it try and try to FIND my level mobs to kill while I try to find a group, incappd, die, incapped, die, incapped, die, incapped die, etc...
I was soooo freaking frustrated I wanted to cry. So you saying that the ONLY way I can play this stupid game is if I hang around starports for hours on end and try to find some people to group with, THEN hope that they will actually fight when we get there, (which ive heard some people just sitting back in groups and raking in the xp for doing nothing), and I don't know about anyone else but after about 4 strikes to the creature im spent. I spend the rest of the time trying to heal myself (heal for 200 get hit for 1200, heal for 300 get hit for 1200...hmmm I wonder what comes next? incapped, die).
So seriously tell me how to play this game now if I can't group and I can't solo. Become a crafter or entertainer? Lol. Oh and BTW ALLL my friends have quit the game. And frankly im almost there too.
Gee you're right this is a better game, I love how I HAVE to depend on other people to get xp. And how if I wanted a well rounded char I have to get another acct (im sure SOE thought of that when dev this CU). You know and maybe people like to be alone sometime, to go exploring by themselves and not have to worry about being killed when I have to answer the phone, and may they like to watch their char fight instead of having to keep urn eye on the tool bar the entire time trying to gauge your next move...FUN!

Oh, and on top of it I just read that when you go to the higher level planets now and you die and don't have insurance you might wake to CYBERNETIC LIMB- and not a cool looking one like in the movies but a gross disgusting puny one that won't have any combat uses. (You'll have to get them taken off or replaced with another useful one) WTH????

Don't tell me these things are all bugs and just to wait till the devs get the head out of their a$$es. These are ALL actual gameplay problems that I would really like to have a serious answer to. Who has ever heard of a game released after 1 month of beta and NO game manual??? I have a master character and I still can't figure out all the crap they changed... why do we still have stimpacks if everything is "magic" based, and if everything is "magic" based why do I need an enhancer for everything? And why cant a MEDIC heal wounds or stop bleeding, wth is the definition of a medic then?

(OH and I haven't mention my other char who lost all his combat skill points to a buggy respec problem that cs says that MAYBE LATER they can get too, [is soe going to refund me for their buggy system since my husband hasn't been able to play for a week now?] or the metal recycler I was crafting that disappeared and im told SOL on that one too [a known bug that was supposedly fixed pre CU])

I cant speak for all the professions, just the ones ive come across playing my characters (I have 2 accts and 6 characters and my husband also has 3-4 character he plays) I was a master TKA which was one of the coolest professions before CU, now its worthless (I got incapped by a level 3 meatlump and I only have 3 moves- combo hit (which is not working) dizzy and knockdown. Well appartly EVERYTHING has resists to KD now so I really had 1 move and it didn't work (bug maybe)

The armor options are a joke- so I see everyone becoming a commando, or bounty hunter just to be able to wear half way decent armor, and the factional armor is joke too... you need fp just to wear it?? Wth... just being part of that faction should be enough. Bone armor for battle ...lol and who designed the retarded padded armor helmets... I look like I should be riding the short bus or maybe have a propeller on top of it.

*RANT*
What's the deal with A beloved Star Wars icon like Darth Vader hocking fan fest tickets... he is NOT SOE property to mock in any way they feel. I for one think it's in VERY bad taste and it truly offends me as a Star Wars fan to have him paraded like a clown.

This "game" is NOT Star Wars, anything star warsy about it is the remnants of a once beautiful game where a TRUE star wars fan could immerse themselves in something they had only dreamt about while growing up... now its just an abomination. The biggest problem I think is not the game itself, its company running the game and the TOTAL lack of respect it has for STAR WARS, its FANS and GEORGE LUCAS. I'm pretty sure he didn't ever imagine a star wars where all the fighters were on timers and they had special Tinkerbelle glitter evertime they did something, (and in game play what's the deal with my head looking like a siren when im blinded????) ... I don't know, I can't speak for him, maybe he did envision a company taking over the star wars name and making crap out of it... I for one am little less excited about the new movie coming out, little less excited about the hype of SW and the merchandise... I can take or leave it now. This is a sad thing.

What is really sad is all they had to do is maybe put a cap on some of the uber things in the last game and maybe tweak a couple of professions... that's it. Would some people still complain... sure they always did whenever something changed, but they probably would have just done what they always have done, and just got used to it. But instead they TOTALLY change the look and feel and the gameplay of the game giving you some thing completely different with out ever asking (at least I never received that question). I'm pretty sure if they would have they would have gotten the same responses as now...no... Just fix the bugs, and they would still have the thousands of accts in working condition. BUT I guess it's not our game (the paying customers), nor the overworked CSR (they have to be overworked with those terrible attitudes), nor is it George Lucas' vision anymore (I personally don't think he would let sooo many SW fans down)... it belongs to SOE. (A non SW, customer, CSR and George Lucas fan).

Well good luck SOE and I hope you do laugh all the way to bank, but after my subscription runs out you won't be laughing with my money.

This is only MY opinions and I had to say all this, to get it off my chest (this whole CU thing has made my literally sick), my husband has been pretty vocal on all this so far on the forums so figured since I loved this game as much as he did I should take a stand too. I'll be putting this in on every SWG review, post, and sending it to as many gamer web pages and to Lucas arts and to anyone else I can find. I only hope that other fans have done the same if they are serious about the anti CU.

PS. I NEVER thought I'd say this in a million years but I can't wait for *gulp* star trek to come out. :\

SOE destroyed a wonderful game
When Star Wars Galaxies was first launched, it was an incredible and visionary game. The designers created a game like nothing that had come before it. The range of different roles available to players was incredible, and the virtual world was immersive and expansive.

Players got the feeling that they were living in the Star Wars universe, something that many (myself included) had dreamed of since Star Wars first hit theaters.

The games original combat system was highly sophisticated with a broad range of special abilities and a wonderfully organic feel, and players were free to engage in immersive and exciting PvE (Player vs. Environment) or PvP (Player vs. Player) adventure.

Recently Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) the maker of the game, has replaced the core engine of the game, with a new one called the "Combat Upgrade". Unfortunately this new system is lacking the vision and sophistication of the original game and is instead a lackluster clone of every other MMORPG on the market. This so-called "upgrade" has left the game flat and uninteresting and Sony is suffering a mass exodus of players.

I for one have played the game almost since launch, and have learned to expect the routine introduction of new bugs into the game. I have also come to expect some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced with any product. These shortcomings however have always been mitigated by the fact that this was (until recently) one of the most immersive and interesting games ever released.

Sadly this is no longer true. The game no longer holds my attention. My wife, daughter, and I have spent many hours playing this game and have many fond memories, but we no longer enjoy the game and find that most of our friends are cancelling their accounts. We will follow them.

Although I was once a huge fan of Star Wars Galaxies, I cannot continue to recommend it. This is now one of the poorest conceived games I have ever played. If Sony were to reverse the last publish, it would be a great game again, but as it stands it is not.

I strongly encourage potential customers to consider other options rather than buying Star Wars Galaxies.

Subscription Fees
To clear up any misconceptions, Star Wars Galaxies subscription fees are as follows:
1 month - $14.99
3 months - $41.99
6 months - $77.99
12 months - $143.99

As you purchase more months at a time, the cost per month decreases. So since 60 days = 2 months, the cost is $14.99 x 2, or $29.98.

The game card is a good thing. You don't have to worry about your credit card on the internet. You can give them as a gift. And if you don't have a credit card, you can buy a game card and use that instead. The only problem is that you can only buy it for 2 months, so you don't get the discounts for more months.

As for the game itself, I enjoy it. It's quite addictive. It's a little tough to get started, but once you get going and joina PA (Player Association), you'll have a lot of fun. I recommend this game to any Star Wars or RPG fan. ... Read more

Product Description

In Running With Scissors' POSTAL 2: Apocalypse Weekend, gamers controlling the enigmatic Postal Dude will be sorely tempted to carry on his wicked ways in the weekend that follows on the bloody heels of the five insane, carnage-filled days experienced in POSTAL 2. ... Read more

Features

• For 1 player
• Expansion pack for Postal 2 or Postal 2: Share the Pain
• 20 New Maps
• New Melee Weapons
• New Characters

Reviews (2)

more,more & more!!
POSTAL 2:apocalypse weekend his funnier blooddier & goreier
there is no freedom what to do like the orginal POSTAL 2 game so what ? this expention pack is equal the money

Nothing much is new or exciting....VERY SHORT TOO!!!
Postal 2 was an awesome game but by now...it is really too late for an expansion pack! The hunger for this game died over a year ago!

I finished this expansion in under 4 hours. YIKES!!! $20 for a measely 4 hours. It has limited re-play value too! Once you have played it, you have done it all. Postal 2 was fun to play again. AW is NOT!!! Why? Because it is too linear! Your enemy attacks are scripted. Basically, once you enter a certain section of the game, the attacks come. PREDICTABLE! Once you play it, you know when the attacks are going to come by heart. No surprises, no shock or thrill, no point! Just repetitive gameplay! Stand here, shoot at enemy - wash, rinse, and repeat!

The enemey AI is the same as Postal 2. They are not intelligent or clever in tactics. They are just aggressive and attack in groups. Go slow, take your time, focus on killing one at a time then continue on and you can easily beat the game.

There are numerous bugs and errors. You can't pee on your enemies. In Postal 2 you could. This is an admitted goof. They sent it off to manufacture before testing the most obvious things! This tells me RWS really slipped up! Your machine gun is still weak and inaccurate. The pistol is much more accurate and deadly, especially at long ranges! How silly is that? You get many General Protection Fault crashes and then have to restart the game. Sometimes I would load into a level only to fall through the floor of the level and die. No fix. I had to start the game from the beginning! There are other glitches and oddities too.

I am not the only one suffering from this. Check out the forums and you can see numerous complaints and RWS even acknowledges the screw ups. In their defense, these things happen and RWS will get a patch out I am sure.

For the record, according to the moderators postings in their ownforums, they admit that this game was designed for their own in-house play and fun. It was never meant to be released to the public. They loved it, thought the fans would like it and decided to release it to us. Fine. I am grateful.

****BUT.....you don't take a half finished, poorly done product, send it off in a rush to manufacture and then charge your die hard fans $20 a pop without thoroughly testing it and polsihing it up first!!!!!!!

By now, we should have been looking forward to or playing Postal 3...not a crappy expansion pack.

You get some new missions and some new weapons...big deal! The graphics are still outdated and tinny.

The game is now linear and very predictable! In Postal 2 you could go everywhere, explore and terrorize. In Apocalypse Weekend, you basically have nothing to do but go on to the next mission.

Save your $20 and use it towards the purchase of GTA: San Andreas which is due out June 7th 2005 - that is just days away!!!! Maybe the guys at RWS will get to play San Andreas and will learn what really good game design is all about! ... Read more

Product Description

Pacific Fighters ... Read more

Features

• Online multiplayer option
• WWII flight combat game
• Fly a variety of WWII fighters and bombers over the Pacific theater
• Take off from and land on aircraft carriers; try to take down enemy aircraft carriers in combat
• Fight in famous historical locations such as Midway, Okinawa, Pearl Harbor, and Singapore

Reviews (16)

Pathetic
My issues with IL-2 Sturmovik include taildragger taxiing (they taxi exactly like a tricycle in the game), no groundloops, no roll inertia at all, scripted spins ("Oleg's Banana Peel Stall" and automatic spins even when plane has no torque and stalls are perfectly coordinated), no difference in dive acceleration between planes, hugely incorrect torque (no rudder input necessary, torque affects twin engined planes with contra-rotating propellers, torque present with engine off), Russian differential braking system on all Western planes (especially annoying for someone who is accustomed to the real thing), and incredibly simple "realistic" engine management (they even took out the P-40's mixture control in one of the patches; don't ask me why, because you can see the control right there in the cockpit).

Here's a few other things I've noticed. You can keep flying a constant circle at very low speed while your wingtip is touching the ground, when in real life you'd be cartwheeling. If you touch wings with another aircraft in the air or on the ground, you lose your wing no matter how gently you touch. So much for the historical tactic of wingtipping V-2 rockets (something the game manual claims you can do). If you are out of fuel and ammunition and you hit the ground hard, you still detonate - what? You can drop a five thousand pound bomb two feet away from a tank, and it won't hurt it because you didn't hit it. You can tear about the sky on full throttle all day, and when you start to overheat, just pull back the throttle for a few seconds, and hey presto - you're good to go again. And don't get me started on the fifty caliber issue. In addition, none of the planes behave like a real aircraft. I can only go with my instinct, observations of warbirds, and limited experience with Cessnas on that one.

My single largest issue is the fact that there are no stalls in the game, discounting spins. You cannot stall your aircraft. You can spin it, but you can't stall it. That's one of the most important parts of flying, and it's done completely wrong.

And I haven't even mentioned the incorrect individual aircraft peformance specifications and characteristics.

Terrific fun at any difficulty level
I'd direct your attention to the review by Oesau, below.Very balanced and spot-on.I enjoy the game very much, and look forward to a flight or two each evening.

I don't understand some of the criticisms, here.Pacific Fighters is not arcade-like at all.The player has full control of many, many settings for difficulty and complexity.You can make it as challenging as you like.Even at simpler settings, it's not easy.I've played it for hundreds of hours, and landing on the carriers is still pretty tough for me.Do-able, but tough, and very satisfying.

I gave it 4 stars overall, and I'll tell you why.The documentation is pretty slim.The Readme files on the basic install and with the patches are critical, and still not complete.For instance, the Readme mentions how to pull the wheel chocks, but it nowhere mentions that they are in place at the beginning of every carrier-based mission, and they do not appear on the external views of your aircraft.You can sit there all day at full throttle, and you're not going to move until you pull them.Considering how much enjoyment I get from this game, that is a fairly minor aggravation, but the online communities are very important for getting past "newbie" questions like that.The forums at UbiSoft and SimHQ are full of people who are very helpful, even when answering the same question over and over from new owners of the game.

It does take a fairly powerful machine to run it.The faster your machine is, the more intense will be the feeling that "you are there."The artificial intelligence of the enemy pilots is pretty decent, too.I've been impressed several times at the "imagination" shown by a computerized enemy as they clobbered me.

Bring your patience and get this game.You'll be very well pleased.

Let the buyer beware
My advice to anyone who is interested in buying this game is to wait until it hits the bargin rack. In my case the game refused to load, the program would not recognize either of the cds. The label states the game contains technology to prevent copying which may conflict with some drives. Believe it! The ubisoft support page requires you to provide lots of personal information in order to be told that the problem is with your computer, perish the thought that there would be anything wrong with their software.

If you have a clue as to what a flight sim is you'll know...
"Pacific fighters" is an exquisitely crafted immersion that conveys an intense emotional and intellectual portrait of what it is to be a WWII combat Aviator. Its not really a "Game" although it is sold as such. Its experience asks a lot from the user. To enjoy this simulator the user must know flight basics thoroughly and understand combat flight tactics at least a little bit to begin with. On top of that it takes a very powerful and fast machine to run it well enough to have fun with it. (I have a thousand dollars invested in my machine to run this 40.00 game.) But OH HOT DAMN it is fun!

If you don't have the fastest machine and need to understand the basics of flight a little better but you're still interested in a WWII flight sim I would recommend Microsoft combat flight simulator 2 pacific theater. It has a realistic flight model and comes with a great manual that explains what you need to know on top of that it offers some features like radar that make 16 plane engagements easer to understand and fly. There is Il2 sturmovik which is an excellent and beautiful sim that requires less that the fastest machine to run, it's a little bit more complex though and doesn't have a manual to speak of. There are some great sights on line that will help you learn what you need to know. Of all the combat flight simulators "Pacific fighters" is the caviar but some people think that's just stinky old fish eggs.

Unfinished release, wait for the finished product
They made their release deadline, but at what cost?

You have to get a patch just to get started, then some of the area maps are missing, {how can you attack Pearl Harbor when it's not there?}, some aircraft they said you could fly,... well... you can't, and the patches are already up to 3.4 and megabytes of fixes...... maybe they'll come out with the finished version sometime.... otherwise buy it for $0.01 and find patches online, just to see the intro! ... Read more

Product Description

Since the Beginning of Time the forces of Order and Chaos have been engaged in an eternal struggle to decide the fate of all Creation. That struggle has now come to the Mortal Realm... And neither Man, Demon, nor Angel will be left unscathed.Diablo, Lord of Terror, and youngest of the Three Prime Evils, awoke from his long sleep beneath the dark earth. Setting in motion a grand scheme to free his exiled brothers, Mephisto and ... Read more

Features

• Five all-new character classes with unique attributes and abilities.
• Four different, fully populated towns complete with wilderness areas.
• Multiple dungeons, caverns and crypts in every town for players to explore.
• Expanded world filled with all-new quests, weapons, spells, armor, monsters and non-player characters.

Reviews (533)

Best of the Genre
Diablo II is a helluva lotta fun.I'm not so much a single player person, but a multiplayer person.The gameplay is well thought-out and engaging.The plot is corny, but, then again, this is an RPG.

The graphics are kinda mediocre, but the gameplay makes up for it.The expansion is a must.Playing online is incredibly addictive, which I don't like, but I get a kick out of it.What makes this game is the interaction in multiplayer.

(...) is easy to use.They catch a fair few cheaters.

My main complaint is that there are many lamers.There is a group of people that buys duplicated items of the internet at like 10 dollars a piece.This is what I don't like.There are other people that hack accounts and steal characters and equipment, and that is just lame.Thankfully, this has not happened to me, although my brother got hacked a long time ago.

Even so, the fact that your account might get hijacked just adds to the reality that it is, after all, just a game.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

The single player is a lot like the multiplayer.It is a good way to learn how to start out independently.In fact, the multiplayer is like single player, but just with more people.(surprise)

There aren't many glitches, and there is skill involved, up to a point.

Buy this game.It's worth your money.So is the expansion.

Great game!
Diablo 1 players. Yes, I know you have suffered, but Diablo 2 fixed all their problems and this game is 700 times better! Get it!

Learned some lessons from DIABLO, but quests more restricted
DIABLO 2 can be summarized as "like DIABLO, but more so." DIABLO 2 has more locales, more varied scenery, more (and more elaborate) AIs, more control over developing your character's skills, more types of characters to play, better play balance, and so on.

Like the original, DIABLO 2's settings are (mostly) randomly generated, so that with the exception of some set-piece areas (like the Skeleton King's lair in the original), no two games follow exactly the same map. DIABLO 2 has four acts covering 5 locales (including Tristram, the setting of DIABLO). Each act has very different climate/geography and monsters differing accordingly.

You're following the trail of the Wanderer (the hero of the first game) as he locates the other Prime Evils, Diablo's brothers, before leading you into Hell and the final confrontation with Diablo himself. The settings in general have much greater variety and eye candy, and include outdoor segments as well as dungeon crawls.

Act I is a generic-Europe setting, with a lesser-demon Level Boss rather than a Prime Evil. Act I most closely resembles the earlier stages of the original DIABLO, and contains references back to the original, as the player's task is to help the Sisters of the Sightless Eye. (The Rogue from DIABLO was a member of the order; your closest-equivalent player character in DIABLO 2 is the Amazon, who has a different backstory.)

Act II is a desert scenario, with a sort of Egyptian flavor to the tombs, and a different, more formidable type of undead. Act III, by contrast, is a rainforest, emphasis on poisonous insects, water monsters, and fast-moving little AIs with blowpipe attacks. Act IV's revamped version of Hell is much more larger and elaborate than that in the original, with an assortment of demons and new attacks. The succubae weren't retained, but as a tradeoff Act I has hordes of renegade Rogues.

Many of the AIs have been revamped to make them tougher and to give them more distinctive appearances. While the distinct colour schemes were retained, the details are more elaborate and they're tougher opponents. The carver-type AIs now include shamans, who in addition to their own magical attacks can raise the fallen. Animated skeletons on higher difficulty levels may now have mages as well as archers with them.

That's one of the biggest changes from the original. Monsters not only regenerate after you've cleaned out a level (even lesser "unique" monsters, though not Level Bosses that have to be killed to end an Act), but many monster types can raise the dead or harvest energy from corpses. There are also delayed-action attacks, as poisons and antidotes have been added.

Other changes from original:
- Multiplayer and single player now use the same limited set of quests, rather than single player having a random selection of a larger set of quests.
- Play balance on character abilities now includes active and passive skills, differing by character type. Not just any character can learn spells.
- In addition to mana and life, player has stamina. While you don't have to eat or sleep as in, e.g. DARKSTONE, you either have to pace your character, stock up on stamina potions, or be content to move slowly.
- In addition to Town Portal spells, each Act contains a set of fixed waypoints, and the player can return to earlier Acts if desired.
- Towns are more elaborate. Apothecaries selling potions are now separate from magic sellers, and at least one NPC per Act can "gamble" with you. You can hire and equip NPCs who will follow you and fight what you fight. If they're with you, your experience points are divided with them, but they level up and become more formidable over time.

Some lessons learned by the designers:
- Local smiths can upgrade weapons, e.g. installing runes or gems in them. Partway through Act II, a quest item allows you to combine multiple gems of the same type to get a single gem of a better grade, so strategy is a factor.
- In town/camp you have a chest in addition to the inventory on your character's person. Items in the chest are safe, but if you're killed and resurrected, anything you were carrying has to be retrieved from the body. Since you're fined a large amount of your total gold when you're resurrected, you're motivated to scavenge your own body anyway just to get some of it back.
- Partway through Act I, you revisit Tristram and rescue Deckard Cain, who now has enough gratitude to identify items for free instead of gouging you.
- Some unique items now come in sets (e.g. helmet, breastplate, gauntlets) that are stronger together than apart, and mostly effective for specific character types (e.g. bonuses apply only to a paladin). Strategy comes into play: is it worth saving an item in the hopes of acquiring the rest of the set?

In summary: the thing I miss most from the original is the randomized quest mix on single player. The active/passive skill system is interesting enough to make up for restricting the player's ability to create super-powerful spell-casting Rogues and the like.

As in the original, even in single-player a game can't be saved in multiple states; you can only have multiple characters working through different scenarios. In multi-player, items can be transferred between characters by drop-and-switch, but that's about it.

nothing tops this
there have been many trys by different developers to copy the play style of diablo 2.they are no doubt good but they are NOT diablo 2.diablo 2 has the best story, fun factor, sound, cinematics, addictiveness and replayability.i stopped playing this a long time ago because i was hooked on starcraft but i am going to start a new character tonight just to see how fun this game is again.my previous barbarian only got up to lvl 46.i've been playin WoW and have a lvl 60 alliance human paladin but there is not nearly as much loot as there is in diablo 2, thus making many characters look the same.(to the post below- all mmorpgs require a fee to play...its what basically gets them paid to make updates, fix the servers, etc.)cant wait to start diablo 2 again!

Another increible Blizzard's production
Lord Of Terror
When Diablo came out almost 4 years ago, it was the surprise hit of the 1997. One day there wasn't Diablo, the next it was on store shelves, and the day after North American productivity plummeted 25%. Although Blizzard liked to classify it as a RPG, it wasn't really one. More like an action-RPG, since so much of the game relied on reflex and mouse-clicking. The story development was slim and roleplaying aspects non-existent. Yet the simple, addictive gameplay hooked us all and had us begging for more.

After years of development, a few promises, a few leaked features and dozens of delays - Diablo II is here. The Second Coming of Hell and another dip in all IT stocks came to my desk less than a week ago, and grudgingly I accepted the job of reviewing the game.

For those of you who've been in a timewarp the past 5 years and never heard of Diablo or Diablo II, let me give you a brief rundown on both.


Diablo
Diablo was a game where you played a hero of one of three character classes - Warrior, Sorcerer or Rogue. This hero operated out of a small town called Tristram, underneath which Hell itself was opening up. At first simply trying to clear the local corrupted Cathedral of vermin infestation, the hero soon discovers that something much more sinister is afoot. Hence you keep going deeper and deeper through the game until you discover that none other than the Lord of Terror himself - Diablo - is at the root of all the problems. You see, he, along with his two other brothers - form the Three Prime Evils. They got banished from Hell by lesser evils and then rampaged around the world until they were captured in soulstones given to mortals by the angel Tyrael.

Through 4 different dungeons having 4 levels each you fought, died, and recovered your own corpse. You'd restart the game when it got too hard to gain xp in easier areas, and go back in again. It was all about getting to the next level, getting the next spell, getting the next better weapon or armor. It was simple to the point of being idiotic. Click the mouse to move somewhere, then click-click-click-click-click at some monster until it dies, and move on to kill more. That's an over-simplified description, of course - but the point is that Diablo was extremely addictive.
... Read more

Product Description

2001-2003 Mythic Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. Mythic Entertainment, the Mythic Entertainment logo, "Dark Age of Camelot", "Trials of Atlantis," the Dark Age of Camelot and Trials of Atlantis logos are trademarks and and the stylized Celtic knot is a registered trademark of Mythic Entertainment, Inc. Windows and DirectX are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Pentium is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. The ratings ... Read more

Features

• Note: this online game requires an Internet connection and charges a monthly fee
• Massively multi-player online roleplaying game incorporating Arthurian legends, Norse myths, and Celtic lore
• Includes original game, Shrouded Isles, and Trials of Atlantis
• Comes with New Frontier upgrade and Foundations upgrade
• One month free subscription

Reviews (13)

A Great Game, Too Often Slammed
I have played this game for about two & a half yrs and have enjoyed my time in game tremendously. Basics of the game involve establishing a fantasy character in 1 of 3 realms in the ancient British Isles. The game allows a character to focus on spending time battling monsters in their own realm, battling players in the other 2 realms, or becoming a crafter of items.You can spend as much or as little time as you want in the game and you can do any combination of the above activities.You also can join with other players to form guilds & alliances.

Many overly criticize that too much time is wasted in the "grind" of leveling a character to 50th or in obtaining items wanted to enhance a character's ability.They miss the point that the pleasure in the game is playing.If their only focus of the game is to become the best of a particular character class with the most realm points posted on the boards, they miss out on the essence of the game which is to explore a fantasy world with numerous dungeons and lands filled with monsters and quests to conquer.The realm vs realm aspect of Camelot is the best in the genre and the various level specific battlegrounds allow a character to have fun defending their realm at almost any level.

I have found that Mythic has been responsive to player feedback. They have made numerous modifications regarding artificat acquisition, realm inequity, class inequity, encounter glitches, etc.

Be careful in starting Dark Age of Camelot, as you may become addicted.I have have had many wonderful adventures in Camelot and made many on-line friends.

Good fun
Its good fun if you can deal with leveling to 50........then the arts.........


Overall a good time, good people for the most part.

Only down side is if you think your going to get a level 50 just kill, not going to happen.

I do think there moving too fast for somebugs but hey! what games doesnt have bugs? Over all rating is 5 stars, untill something that can match and/or beat this, im there!

DAOC is great...
Not!!!If you are looking for a MMORPG, and bought this one great.If you havent let me tell you about it.I played off and on since Feb 02.Some people were playing before that as well, but nevermind that.Me having 10 level 50 character doesnt really say much, but I did waste plenty of time to explore what this game has to offer.
First thing you do is kill this and that till you are level 50.Run to the frontier and get yourself killed by everything that you see and dont see.Then you start working on equipting your toon, using TOA, SI, and player crafted items.Oh forgot to mention you also need to finnish master level 1-10x10 (if anyone tells you master level is fun, please have pity and get them some therapy).level 20-24 will probably be the most fun for you; lots of people in battleground for you to play with and against, and the gap between equipments doesnt equate to much. after level 45 the grind really kicks in.Once you are done with your grind, you will find out if you like Realm vs Realm or not.Dont believe anything Mythic tells you.That book that came with the game, burn it.If you need to know something find a character in game and ask them, the best chance are those level 50 in all black.They are generally the one that compete hard.
RvR is somewhat dead.so dont buy this game if that's why you looked at it in the first place.
1.(denied by mythic) Most of the people who RvR have quit or stop RvRing.Maybe some moved to albion, so I wouldnt know that as a midgard player)
2.(denied by mythic) Game is not balanced, population and other things.Many things that the players complaint about are ignored.You can find these stuff online easy enough.
3.RvR is mainly siege equipment now.Which mean all your time invested equate to a level 20 behind a siege machine for the most part. Level 1-50+ Master Leve 10(1-10)+x(artifacts)(1-10artifact levels) only comes to play 1% of the time.Ok so 10% of the time.

And if you really have to try it out, play an Albion.You cant go wrong there.From the start i cant remember Albion not getting enough love.It's too late for me, I already pick Midgard and i wont switch side.Whether i play or not is another issue.

Dark Age of Camelot Review
I have been playing DAoC for the past 2 years.I have 2 level 50's characters and 3 almost 50.ToA has been changed and does not hurt the game.The leveling of artifacts has been made extremely easyer.The leveling of characters also has been made easyer by getting 1 FREE level every 3 days so long as you have leveled once through xp within those 3 days.New Frontiers is not all bad like people say.I like it more than OF(Old Frontiers) because it brought balance to the realm ablities and made it so that rvr has more strategy.As for population imbalence problems, those also have been fixed because Albion (the overpoulated realm on all servers) has a 7 day free level timer instead of a 3 day.Also on that note hibernia and midgard get a bonus to all xp and realmpoints earned.I hope everyone plays the game and if you decide to go on Galahad server in Albion and send Misformed (me) a tell. :)

Game peaked before Trials of Atlantis
I've played Dark Age of Camelot since Feb 02 owning 3 accounts, 2 level 50 and 3 more level 40ish chars. This game was excellent and the best MMORPG out there until Trials of Atlantis. From that point the timesinks became ridculous and with the new fronteirs expansion the game has spiraled out of control. The grind was originally levels 1-50 and then build your characters equipment template. Now, it takes all of that but your equipment must now be attained, activated and leveled which takes a long time, if not longer then getting your character to level 50. Then you have the Master Levels which can be 12-14 hour single sessions to get one Master Level completed and there are 10. Leveling some artifacts can take 40 game play hours to level just one of them up. Now, the game is facing severe population issues because no one will try a new realm because it would take a year of playing to be able to compete. (less obviously for people who play 24x7)

This game had always provided a stable, safe opt-in version of realm versus realm combat which was the main draw of the game - and LOTS of fun! but Mythic lost sight of that, blew the timesinks through the roof and the game is suffering terribly because of that.

Many of us long for the DAoC that existed the year before the Trials of Atlantis expansion! The level of work neccessary used to somehwat match the reward and fun of the end game RvR - now the work is 2-3 times that and many don't find the return on investment to be worth it anymore.
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Product Description

Featuring more official team and league licenses than any other soccer game (including lower leagues from the most competitive European countries), an enhanced and extended Career Mode, EA SPORTS Online play for the PlayStation2 computer entertainment system, PC-CD and the Xbox video game system from Microsoft and the all-new Creation Zone that lets you customize new tournaments or even put yourself into the game, FIFA Soccer 2005 is the only complete, authentic and intelligent soccer experien ... Read more

Features

• Soccer sports game
• More than 350 official team and league licenses from around the world
• Licensed stadiums with authentic crowd chants
• Career mode lets you play from both the pitch and the front office
• Single player, LAN multiplayer, and online multiplayer modes

Reviews (7)

Arcade version, not a simulation
If you want to play football without much control depth then choose this over the European "Pro Evolution Soccer 4" (title is "Winning 11" in the US) and if you have heard the buzz surrounding that game then you should know that it is in the top three sports simulations of all time.

Winning 11 however is not an out-of-box game, taking days to learn, weeks to master and then improve on with other players. FIFA works straight out of box, is easy, but its limits become all too obvious in light on Winning 11, a game has been in development since the Nintendo 64 and is easily the best soccer engine out there.

The bottom line is that if you want a soccer game that works out of box, that you can play almost right away with anybody, then FIFA has it. If you want a real soccer sim that takes longer to get into but is far better, then choose Winning 11.

Fifa 2005
Fifa 2005 is very simialar to Fifa 2004. But there are differences between the two. I really like 2005 more for the reasons that the new style is really cool. The music in the game is killer [they went for a more international music approach, rather than just the American music scene], and there is a visible differnece in the graphics upgrade. Basically, its an updated version of 2004. However, I bought this just for the hell of it, but 2005 doesnt come anywhere close to Winning Eleven 7. I bought Winning Eleven 8 recently, but it was in Japanese, but the gameplay is so much better. In F2005, no matter how many times you press sprint, the players just move so slow. The stadiums itselfs are not very lively, [i only saw one flag waving in the enitre crowd]. I bought 2005 mainly because I lost Winning Eleven 7, but Fifa 2005 is still pretty worth the buy. I do, however, prefer the winning eleven series. Gameplay is much easier and better at the same time.

Buy on PC if you can
I bought this game first on the playstation 2 but soon realized,(by playing the PC demo, and then surfing all the fan sites) that the the PC version is a smarter purchse. The game is great soccer gaming experience, and by far the best gameplay engine to date. (Still not perfect yet, though) The most frustrating aspects are the missing teams, incorrect player faces, incorrect uniforms, and missing stadiums. However, all these issues can be addressed if you have the pc version, through the many fan/user created websites designed to fix these discrepancies. And that is my recomendation to the soccer gamer.

Another [...] By EA!!
I'm a true footie fan and always will be, it's the only sport around the globe that is worth watching. Oh and by the way people who call this wonderful sport soccer are people who don't know anything about the true Football sport. I didn't actually buy this game and I never intended to but one of my friends had given me his copy which he didn't like to try. Boy was that worthless. EA sports managed over the years to bring a game for footie fans and make them enjoy it. Lately they have been trying to cheat off the Winning Eleven 7 game by Konami and it is evident in every move. No matter how hard EA will try they will never even come close to Winning Eleven 7 because they just simply don't haveFootball-true engineers working on this game and they are only after the money. Speaking to a lot of people(AMERICANS to be exact) they choose graphics over true realistic gameplay that represents true Football, and that just tells me one thing that they know nothing of the sport and should not come near it in whatever way. EA had said they had corrected errors in previous games but that's all a [...]because players in the game still wait for the ball to come to them instead of running towards it and also EA still haven't figured out a way past their formulated way of scorring goals. A good example of that if you want to score a goal all you have to do is cross and I guarantee a goal no matter what. EA sports FIFA "FOOTBALL" 2005 is simply a shadow imitation of Winning Eleven 7, and the only difference between the 2 is the graphics in EA is better and that is why I gave a 1 star. Whoever gives it more is no Footie Fan you just remember that. If you simply want good graphics then buy the game but keep in mind you are no footie fan, but if you want a realistic wonderful game you play Winning Eleven 7 which I give a 6 out of 5. Winning Eleven 8 is coming out soon it will erase every attempt by EA to succeed in Football games.

3 1/2 stars
its pretty good.

my previous fifa game was fifa 2002, and to be honest, 2002s graphics are as good or better than 2005s.

also, the menus are probably the worst ever.why cant they just use a simple layout like 2002 and 2002 world cup?it was so much easier to use.Dont get me wrong though.its a very ogod game, and if youre going to get a soccer game, this is defintely the one to get. ... Read more