A bit more humor doesn't hurt.

Here are a couple funny videos.





A song to finish it off...

Review List

I will offer a continually updated list of the games Reviewed and their genres.

RPG
Mass Effect (PC) 31/07/08

RTS
Settlers 6 03/08/08

Settlers 6 Review

Settlers 6 is a Real Time Strategy game, which to be frank does not really reflect at all the Settlers series or rather the original title or its three good successors. It takes the macro management as well as the unlimited expansion of population completely away and leaves the player with a game that mostly plays itself. You still build the old buildings to gain the resources but then you can't do anything really all you can do once you have the complete basic economic base is sending streams of units to the enemy since you have no more population as space to expand further. You can't use you economic power expand further and thus build more units because simply there is not the cap limit all you can do is watch slowly the soldiers be trained and I mean slowly because it is a process that is even slower then in the originals. But in the original games it didn't matter because there was always some economic concern that would keep you busy even when you were waiting on the units to be trained. Basically Settlers 6 is a crippled version of the original series just like Settlers 5. If you are looking to play some old school settlers I suggest playing 2, 3 or 4 all three are good and all three can be played on XP and Vista.
The Graphics are ok and fully 3D but then again if you have nothing to do then even staring at pretty graphics seems awfully dull.
Atmosphere is lost completely and as for AI and Balance well those both don't really matter since you are basically playing a RTS with unit limit, which is slow paced but still C&C/Dawn of War style. So basically you send hordes of units against each other and then do that until one has build the wrong type of units/defenses and the other can actually begin damaging the opponents lair and which point the game is almost over.
The interface is very simple in fact it is so simple that you don't even have to think to do anything...since the little things that you can do are brightly advertised and all the player has to do is click the big button to which for some reason no arrows a pointing but bright colours do the trick just the same.
It is a lot like playing AOE3 utterly boring the game itself has nothing really to offer to the player. The pace is to slow to make the combat interesting and to uneventful to make it worth the wait. Basically you will end up staring at some town in the middle ages then to eventually only watch the soldiers fight in old settlers tradition.

The Score:
Gameplay 3/10 You click some bright buttons and the rest is on auto-pilot.
AI 1/10 AI...yeah well it has way to much control basically the game is a self contained AI.
Graphic 4/10 YAY 3D RTS...wait old news nothing really outstanding here either.
Storyline 4/10 OK Story...but how many players play RTS games only for the story?
Sound 2/10 Pretty uneventful and like the general game dull.
Balance 1/10 Yes it is so balanced that you can send troops against each other for hours...to no effect.
Atmosphere 2/10 Atmosphere...oh you mean that thing from the old settlers games? Yeah that is gone.
Interface 3/10 So simple that a four year old could play this game sleeping...and still win...
Design 5/10 Design is decent.
Overall:2.7/10

Final word
Settlers 6 is another proof that good preceding titles do not make a good successor, like settlers 5 it is not really a settlers game and very boring at the same time. If you feel like banging your head on your desk, staring paint dry or even at a blank screen...grass grow etc. then Settlers 6 might be an alternative but I' am sure you can find something better to do with your time then that. So overall Settlers 6 is definitely one of the worst RTS games I have ever played.

Want a review off something specific submit a Review request per e-mail or leave a response at the latest review.Review Rules

Mass Effect (PC) Review

Mass Effect is a third person shooter with a strong RPG component. It is a strong one track storyline it does allows for some variations along the way bot overall does not alot off deviation. The Gameplay is very direct, but the vehicle portion is very sluggish and at times uncomfortable. While you are playing with colleague AIs they do not really help for the most part it plays like a solo-game. The game does allow the user to change gear and modify the gear to some extent.
The AI is generally not as impressive as we have seen in titles like STALKER or Far Cry, but it does give you a decent run for your money. The friendly AI is close to useless because it has a severe waypoint sickness which often fails with the most basic tasks...like leaving an elevator.
There are a lot of videos to tell the story but those are all in-game sequences since the programmers seem to have had the wish that the costume gear could always be seen. Which is how the rendered videos were lost...
The Graphic is very unimpressive neither it nor the physics engine have big points that have to be mentioned. The game does not suffer under said graphic it is adequate and allows even a slower PC to run the game. I explain the lack of high level textures and physics with a Console release, I suspect that EA did not want to do two sets of graphics. So they set out to let the PC run with console graphic. This decision only stands out when the camera is zoomed in close to something in a video when you can see how low the textures are, and if you look at the faces of the characters.
The storyline is definitely one of Mass Effects major strong points, it is quite intriguing and allows for some immersion. A nice degree of detail is supplied and it does have a good means of telling, there are also several smaller side stories which provide background and sometimes just fun. However the overall storyline is very linear, we have seen some games trying on player directed endings in some games. But generally most games are still based on a strict storyline which does not deviate whatever you may want to do.
Sound effects in combat are adequate, all conversations are spoken and subtitles are rare considering the volume of speech that is a lot background chatter as well as every conversation that the character has. This makes the it far more interesting to play Mass Effect.
The game balance is acceptable, it often tends to lean on the player's side and makes it very easy to complete missions. However this guarantees progress for players and limits the time invested in running around without knowing what to do to move on or simply dying over and over again without finding away to complete some impossible mission. Mostly because there is nothing hard about completing these missions.
The Atmosphere in Mass Effect is good it emerges the player in the story and makes the game almost addicting while playing it through.
The interface is rather simple everything is provided in tips and information to the user you can always ask some AI what now? And they will tell you, the interface itself is mouse based. Conversations as well as combat and movement are mostly done via mouse the keyboard provides little help.
The General game design is quite good, while playing Mass Effect I was reminded off Tron 2.0 also a good game for Shooter/RPG marriages which had a good storyline and interesting characters as well as a intriguing universe.
Overall Mass Effect is a game worth playing.

The Score:
Gameplay 7/10 Generally decent gameplay but sometimes just odd. As well as bad control off vehicles.
AI 4/10 Enemy AI is decent but the allies are plain horrible.
Graphic 6/10 It looks a bit old but its EA so what do you expect they cut cost where they can.
Storyline 10/10 Great Story.
Sound 7/10 Voice for all characters, in combat the sounds seem a bit flat or miss a few shots here and there.
Balance 6/10 To easy most of the time.
Atmosphere 7/10 Pretty good, but suffers under graphic and sound as well as balance issues.
Interface 6/10 Generally good but there are somethings that are not ideal.
Design 8/10 Quite good design wise they did come up with some interesting things at this front.
Overall:6.7/10

Final word
I would say that Mass Effect is a good game providing around 12 hours off solid solo playing and fun. After that you will most likely be hunting achievements or have stopped playing the game. Mass Effect mostly gleams with its strong storyline. The learning curve is under an hour so it will take no time to pick it up.

Want a review off something specific submit a Review request per e-mail or leave a response at the latest review.Review Rules

Top Lan Games

All of the Games included are non-MMOs all of these games also support TCP-IP.

1. Battlefield 1942 and 2
2. Starcraft
3. Settlers 3 and 4
4. Diablo 2
5. 1701 A.D. (Anno 1701 as well as 1604)
6. AOE 2

Review Request Rules

It has to be a game which is already released. It should also be a PC-Game, I can review some Xbox/360 and Gamecube as well as N64-Games however beyond that I do not have access to more systems. I will also only review one game a day.

The reviews I will keep basic explaining weaknesses and strengths of a game as well as giving it a score. The criterias area: Gameplay, AI, Graphic, Storyline, Sound, Balance, Atomsphere, Interface, Design.

Vegatrainism an excercise...

Vegetarianism and Veganism seems to be really a futile exercise in ignorance and/or hypocrisy. Now let me explain, Vegans and Vegetarians say that it is bad to eat animals for reasons of how they are kept before being eaten and of course the eating itself. Now Vegans go so far as to not even eat animal products whats how ever without realizing that is nearly impossible.
Firstly the keeping, the keeping is not only to make the feeding/milking and subsequent slaughter easier but also it allows direct access to by-products for example cows provide a great deal of shit which is used to fertilize fields. This accounts for most animals of great seize which are kept in closed quarters.
Of course the Vegetarian extremists the Vegan is a contradiction on two legs, they don't eat anything stemming from animals, almost no sweets...well most of those apply to the Vegetarians to because many gummies as well as some chocolates are made with animal tissues. Now they don't eat honey, eggs or milk. How is that an issue? Well, honey comes from bees as is commonly known but they do not only produce honey they also pollinate fruit farms in the process allowing them to grow apples, oranges etc. As a matter of fact all farms that grow something that needs to pollinated need a great number of bees to insure quick pollination. The kind of numbers you could only achieve with the help of bee farms. So in keeping with not eating honey they also shouldn't eat any food pollinated by those bees in captivity. The same of course accounts for all farms which once or more a year fertilize with animal excrement's, but this would apply again to all Vegetarians.
Overall the fact is that in today's food production the elements are interdependent, and you can barely eat any food if you were really serious about not being cruel to animals or insects...this brings me to a last point. Almost all farms use barriers and several chemicals to protect their crops this harms animals nearby who get caught in the netting's of fruit farms or who simply inhale or eat food covered with the named chemicals which would mean that you can't eat good 99% of crops grown either...
So how does this track with being against animal cruelty, or protecting animals in the end all they do is not eating them harming or even killing them all the same though.

Alignment

Today what do we do as first order of the day? We align ourselves with something, a brand or idea maybe some stars/starlets on the way? We do not develop our own ideas we simply assimilate the ideas which we are confronted with since who would want to be different being different in a herd society is bad after all. We want to know what the stars do since our own lives are not exiting enough. We follow stars and starlets we want to know all their secrets today its almost normal to know everything about those whom you are a fan off. Then again the origin of the word Fan comes from Fanatic the Fanatic could also be called extremist. Now then why do we life in a world were extremism is all that we know? If religious, political, economic or simply listening to music. We consume not only the art we consume the artist we consume everything if alive or dead as long as it entertains and as long as it feeds that hunger that can never be satisfied the need to belong to a group. A group that consists only because of an obsession with something or other but why is that so? Why does the human need to create these extreme groups which inevitably cause friction with other groups. Soccer and music Fans are great examples and they often enough cause riots. They will fight with the other side's fans just because they do not share they view of which team is better. But why have things that trivial become that central to our world. Now of course some will say religion is more important then a sport but realistically they are on equal footing they respective fans are willing to fight and even kill those who do not share their view.
Could it be that today we are unable to actually see a true difference between people so we align ourselves along more and more artificial lines. Lines based on anything to create a new herd to belong to something to be with something to be part off if its the fan club for some star or that for some religion is entirely unimportant as long as we do so right? Why not fight each other on some other ridiculous ground? Since as long as our life focus on something on anything really as long as that is center is provided everything is alright...isn't?

The truths

Here are a three of Parodies regarding the fun side of some of the next generation of computing and gaming.

Soldiers

War, a most unpopular issue. We often complain about war but what do we do about it? I can remember the stories of Veterans returning from Vietnam and Iraq and many other wars or from North Korea and Afghanistan to include non-US armed forces. These stories often include that the people blamed the soldiers to for the war. Now that is a bit odd considering that soldiers join for many reasons however very few do so with the declared goal of killing people they never met before. Most want to defend they nation or don't see another way out of their situation be it social, educational or a career. Others want to be trained to respond and serve not just to defend the nation but also to respond in emergencies, since the armed forces are among the first to respond to catastrophies which exceed the regional capacities. (Bushfires excluded)
If anyone would be to blame for a War its the people who did not stop their government and the government which includes many people who never wore a uniform and don't really know what they send their soldiers into. While the Military/Intelligence complex prepares for contingencies it does not mean that they wish to fight wars but rather want to be prepared and ready. I have heard of many wars or military decisions which were made against the advise of the military leaders. Soldiers are the ones who are also wronged not only the people of an attacked nation, we have to remember that while soldiers swear to fight and defend for a country they also expect to be used for those purposes only.
If their trust is violated then are these soldiers not equally victims?
They however can not dissobey because of what they agreed to, which is them being soldiers it lies with the people of their respective countries to insure that soldiers are not used in any wrong manner which would violate their trust in their government and the people. Blaming a soldier for serving is not fair considering that they may want to protect their country but once they are soldiers then they have no choice but to obey.