Take a look at Fallout 3

More than 10 years ago, serious computer role-playing game fans fell in love with a postapocalyptic role-playing game called Fallout, a game that offered deep role playing, dark humor, and a memorable adventure that was worth replaying. More than 10 years later, an entirely different studio is now working on the next game in the series, trying to stay true to the original vision of the first Fallout game from 1997 while also including all the improvements and open-ended exploration of its last game, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Yes, Bethesda Softworks is working on Fallout 3. Yes, your adventure will take place in the postapocalyptic wasteland (in this case, the ruins of Washington DC); yes, you'll still start your adventure as a dweller in a vault (a colony living in a radiation shelter left over from the nuclear war); and yes, we had an opportunity to take an updated look at the game.



Main character creation occurs as the player experiences the character's childhood. The character's mother dies in labour in the Vault 101 hospital, immediately after which the player decides the character's general appearance through a DNA analysis conducted by the father. Afterwards, the father removes his surgeon's mask to reveal a face similar to the one chosen by the player for the character. As a child in the Vault, the character receives a book titled "Your Special" whereupon the player can set the character's seven Primary Aptitude The character receives training weapons and a PIP-Boy 3000 later on during childhood, and the player's performance in various tests determines the rest of the attributes. Additionally, several quests inside the Vault will be able to influence the player character's relationship with his or her father. Skills and Perks are similar to those in previous games: the player chooses three Tag Skills out of 14 to be the character's specialties. Four skills have been cut out from the game (Fallout and Fallout 2 had 18 skills) but it is unknown which skills have been removed. The maximum level the player can achieve is level 20. The Traits from the previous Fallout installments were combined with Perks in Fallout 3, and the player can choose a new Perk each time after gaining a level.


Another facet of gameplay is that firearms wear out over time: as a weapon degenerates, its rate of fire slows and it loses accuracy. However, worn out firearms can be combined to make more reliable and powerful weapons. Weapon schematics can also be found and used to create various devices such as the Rock-it Launcher, created by combining a leaf blower and a wood chipper, that can fire various items such as lunchboxes and stuffed animals, or the Clever Shrapnel Bomb, made out of a Vault-Tec lunchbox and bottlecaps. Along with equipping various weapons, the player can also utilize different armors and clothing that may have effects that can alter various skills. For example, a pair of mechanic's coveralls may boost the player's repair skill while it is worn. Armor and clothing come in two main parts for the head and body, allowing a player to wear different combinations of hats and armor. Also, a player's inventory has a specified weight limit, preventing a player from carrying too many items. Items like weapon ammo have no weight, due to the developer not wishing to bog down inventory management.

The Sims 3 Comming Soon

The best-selling PC game franchise of all time just got a bit more best-selling. EA announced today that The Sims series has now sold 100 million copies worldwide since it launched in 2000. Since the first game, the series has been translated into 22 different languages and sold in 60 countries around the world. According to the New York Times, the franchise has generated over $4 billion for its publisher, Electronic Arts--or around $500 million per year.

The third stand-alone game in the Sims series will feature a new engine, which EA has been slaving away at for three years, and the biggest new feature will be the ability to seamlessly move around an open neighbourhood. Previous games in the Sims series were expanded by packs such as The Sims: Hot Date, and The Sims: Vacation, which let gamers take their sims on holiday or into town with a beau, for example, but these communal zones were always separate from sims' abodes.

In the next game, the sims will be able to walk freely around their neighbourhoods, visit their pals, and venture to new locations such as City Hall and the local park. There will also be a "deeper" system for governing how sims behave, called the Realistic Personality System, which will let gamers manipulate five character traits when creating their sims. This opens up a number of possibilities, or as EA puts it: "Will you create the nosy, inappropriate, kleptomaniac grandmother who loves to meddle in other people's business? Or the commitment-phobic, hot-headed punk rocker whose rude nature and childish disposition keeps him from scoring a date?" Apparently, 700 million different combinations await.

Dracula 3 Features

As you'd expect, Dracula 3 takes place in Eastern Europe, with locales that comes across as gloomy and deserted as you'd expect. You play a catholic priest investigating a candidate for beautification to sainthood only to discover that the subject may not be so admirable after all; in fact, she was apparently trying to become a vampire. That's not so great if you've got to report to the Holy See.
Fortunately, there's a mystery to solve first, with clues like dead bodies riddled with arrows, messages written in blood, and puzzles like one that has you try and reconstruct a library's catalog system after it has mysteriously burned to the ground. Now here comes the spoiler, so look away if you really like surprises: You also start turning into a vampire, which isn't too bad as things such as night vision are pretty handy when you're sealed inside a stone sarcophagus.

The mechanics in Dracula are simple: point and then click. You can also right-click to open a series of menus that handily point out your objectives, inventory, recent conversations, and documents recovered. And when in doubt, consult the bible. A bible written in Latin is included, and you can open it to random pages for verses that act as clues for what to do next.

Diablo 3

Development on Diablo III began some time in 2005 when Blizzard North was still in operation. The original artistic design differed from that shown at Blizzard Worldwide Invitational 2008 demonstration, and had undergone three revisions before reaching the standards felt necessary by the team behind Diablo III. The development teams comprise fifty people. Most of the game mechanics and physics are complete and undergoing minor revisions. Most of the current and remaining development will focus on adding game content.

The game takes place in Sanctuary, the dark fantasy world of the Diablo series. This world was saved twenty years prior by a handful of unnamed heroes in Diablo II. Warriors that survived the onslaught of the armies of the Burning Hells have gone mad from their ordeals, and it is up to a new generation of heroes to face the forces of evil threatening the world of Sanctuary. Players will have the opportunity to explore familiar settings such as Tristram. Two of five classes have been unveiled so far: Barbarian and Witch Doctor. Players may choose gender for each class, a change from the fixed class genders in the previous two games.

With different types of monsters on hand, it's fortunate that the character classes in Diablo 3 will be just as epically powerful as you remember. The Barbarian is still a melee specialist (though not without his specialized ranged attacks). The Barbarian's skills will be familiar to Diablo II fans--we saw the whirlwind in effect, sweeping through scores of enemies--but he’ll have some other tricks up his sleeves (that is, if he wore sleeves), including the sweep, which can blast multiple enemies around him. During the on-stage demo, the Barbarian managed to take down a stone wall on a group of zombies, pointing to more interactive environments throughout the gameplay. While environments won't be fully destructible, you can look forward to many instances, such as this one, where you can use the environment to your advantage, with a certain amount of real physics involved in the destruction.

The Witch Doctor will have control over disease, can summon pets, and can even control the minds of his or her enemies. We saw a few examples of these different approaches in the game demo: Locust swarm is a spell that summons a nasty horde of flying locusts that can overwhelm an opponent. Better yet, the locusts will automatically spawn to attack additional enemies in the area. We saw one pet in use too; the mongrel. This pet can attack enemies and can be buffed with other Witch Doctor spells; during the demo, the player cast locust swarm on his mongrel, giving the pet an attack bonus. We also briefly saw the horrify spell, which causes enemies to temporarily flee in terror. By far, his coolest ability was the wall of zombie, which was truly terrifying. If you've seen a wall of fire or ice in a game before, you probably have a pretty good idea of what this skill involves.





In Diablo III, potions will still play a part of the action but their importance has been downplayed, thanks to a couple of changes. The first are health globes, which drop off defeated enemies and will serve to boost the health of your character, as well as those around you if you're playing co-operatively. As the developers put it, the idea of enemies dropping health is one that will keep the player moving forward in the game, as opposed to trying to avoid combat. In addition, a new skill toolbar, similar in location to the old potion belt in Diablo II, will make your skills that much more accessible, easily allowing you to switch between skills on the fly. You’ll even be able to swap skills quickly using the roller on your mouse for even more ease of use. The result is a game you’ll likely be able to play almost completely with your mouse; no more hunting for skills using the F key on your keyboard. Here's one more important addition regarding cooperative play: When a character picks up a health globe, any surrounding allies also benefit from that health globe, which seems like it will encourage players to stick together when hacking and slashing their way throughout the game. To our ears, it also makes it sound like practically any class will be able to tank effectively (as long as someone is picking up the health globes and standing nearby), but we'll have to see how it plays out as the game develops.