There are two things I really love about traditional RPGs. Actually, it really boils down to one thing: exploration. This leads to discovering new enemies and therefore forces me to think about different battle formations, weapons, abilities and spells. It also leads to the discovery of new items, which I gather to my person with a lust usually reserved for coke addicts questing for crumbs on Auckland nightclub toilet cisterns.
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The original Kane & Lynch game, released by IO Interactive in 2008 was met with a mixed reception from critics and gamers alike. But overall, Kane & Lynch showed a lot of promise in the third-person shooter genre, and it seemed that with a bit of tender loving care, it could blossom into a triple A title.
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The latest game from Ron Gilbert (Monkey Island I&II, Maniac Mansion, etc) DeathSpank is all about the adventures of the titular hero, told from a third-person action roleplaying perspective. With Ron Gilbert at the helm, expectations (for both amusing narrative and fun gameplay) were set almost unattainably high - and that's before we knew any detail about the game itself.
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World of Warcraft has been something of a success. Aiming for a modest 500,000 subscribers, Blizzard's epic MMORPG currently sits at something like 12,000,000! It superseded its measly original target in its first week and has continued to grow ever since.
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Am I on God mode? E3. 2010. I am sitting with a developer at the helm of F.E.A.R. 3. I am getting shot at. Like, a lot. Like... a lot. But I am not dead. I am told they put it on God mode to give me - us - a fighting chance. It sort of takes some of the shine off, but at least I am able to get a good idea of how the game is shaping up.
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I used to play golf. I wasn’t very good at it. Who can find the time these days to traipse up and down nicely manicured grass for half a Sunday? Not me. Maybe I’m just lazy or not retired enough, because people still enjoy the challenge of hitting small white balls around fake forests. Golf is an international sport that attracts not only badly designed casual wear, but also serious money and serious players.
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The original Crackdown could be described as fun in a sandbox... filled with explosives. It gave us a superhuman character that could leap over buildings, throw vehicles around, shoot a guy in the face from a thousand feet and run like a whippet. It was a ludicrously enjoyable alternative to the more serious GTA franchise. But the original did have some faults, such as an unbalanced learning curve, a repetitive mission structure and a poor script.
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