A sequel to the original installment released in 2000 is finally out. If there were prizes given out for originality and innovative design, I’m sure the Majesty series would at least be mentioned as a nominee. Nowadays it’s hard to find a game that attempts to offer something new and if that game is an RTS then the surprise is many times bigger than in the case of other games genre. That’s because the first thing that comes to mind when mimicking strategic warfare in games is that you can’t improve something that has its current form based on centuries of evolution and development. But the truth is that you can, especially if you do no lose sight of the fact that a game should include the element of fun, something the cold reality which functions as inspiration might lack. So instead of using … More

Do you know what happens when mix all the colors together? Basically nothing, you just get an unimpressive grayish brown that can only be used to describe dirt. And this is exactly what happened to The Saboteur, a game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by EA: they took everything good out there and threw into a blender hoping for a magical result. Unfortunately what came out was not a rainbow, but an abomination that feeds on gamers’ fears.

The first thing that drew my attention was the name.  Saboteur – a game I loved back in the days when Commodore was the tip of the technological iceberg and two-frame animations were acceptable. That game’s main character was an athletic female ninja with no notable background, so because of that name I was kind of hoping for something similar when it came to The Saboteur. … More

Have you seen this girl, the new teaser trailer released by Iceberg Interactive today, comes to celebrate the global direct download launch of the game on various portals such as GamersGate and Impulse. The box versions of the game can still be preordered from Iceberg webshop and they will be shipped out early next week with the UK retail release date on the 11th.

In my opinion the story behind the trailer is many times more impressive than the actual footage to say the least, but a picture is worth a thousand words (or so they say) so a film must be worth a gazillion words. Here is the story and I’ll let you decide for yourself the truth value of that statement: … More

As soon as the calendar month tag flips to December, all hell breaks loose: the PR departments switch to hyper drive, Marketing overdoses on dirty tricks and retailers go out of their way to create a “new and exciting” web of promotions in which they hope the naive, unsuspecting consumer will get caught… again. No matter how old, cheap and obvious the whole ritual is, customers act surprised each and every time and go along with it, sacrificing embarrassing amounts of money on products they would normally ignore if it was June. I wish I could say gamers are special, that they developed some sort of immunity when it comes to advertising and that years of experience have thought them not to go with the flow, not to believe that shiny and cheap means better, and not to let themselves mind controlled by simple spells such as “Holiday Special!”. But … More

Ubisoft is renowned for using the same IP for countless iterations until it has been sucked dry of any novelty or appeal. So the press release that surfaced today, announcing a new installment for the Prince of Persia series has the same surprise value as the night-day cycle.

The video game currently in development is called Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and the storyline behind it will naturally complement the one on which Sands of Time has been build upon. The French developer has promised a gameplay experience that will follow in the footsteps of the previous game, but enriched with innovations that will not disappoint the fans of the famous series. … More