showing 5 games

namepublisher(developer)year arrow_downwarddescription
Lands of Lore III  Electronic Arts (Westwood Studios)1999Practically unplayable on Windows XP and newer, crashes with segfault on lol3.dat whenever a video is about to play. This can be avoided by hitting esc key to skip it, but this requires reflexes and obviously depraves you of whatever bits of the story is revealed in them. Some have managed to run the game by removing certain background applications, but there seems to be no agreement what those are.***Latest version: 1.07a (as of 1999-05?)***Comes on 4 CDs.***[b][size=130]Easy To Play.
Hard To Resist.[/size][/b]

Armed with only your sword and spellbook, you must break free of your past to forever close dimensional rifts born from ancient magic. Fear not. Four guilds, the mystic Dawn, and a magical familiar companion will aid you in this perilous task. Be brave or all shall be lost for eternity... even your very soul.

[b]Knowledge At Your Fingertips[/b]
Your in-game journal is a manual that builds itself, giving you all the information you need as soon a you need it. Never be lost. Never be confused.

[b]Easy-to-Use Interface[/b]
An intuitive inventory system puts a vast array of weapons, items and spells at your fingertips.

[b]Breathtaking 3D Enhancements[/b]
Enter the grandeur of the most richly detailed Lands of Lore world ever as incredible lighting effects, realistic shadows and detailed texture maps intensify your every encounter.

[b]Fascinating And Diverse Worlds[/b]
Interact with intriguing characters as you trek through six distinct worlds, ranging from vast, frozen wastelands to underworld labyrinths.

[b]Spectacular Spells and Magic[/b]
Conjure dozens of spells including the Detonation Sphere, Banish, Hologram, Blade Turret, Cataclysm and many more.

[b]Interactive Character Development[/b]
Join up to four guilds—Warriors, Mages, Clerics, or Thieves—to customise your character and strengthen your skills.

[b]Weapons And Magic Items Galore[/b]
Choose from over 60 weapons to defend yourself and over 100 magic items to gain special abilities and ensure your survival.
[Box blurb]***[b]Minimum:[/b]
* Windows 95 or 98
* Pentium 166 MHz
* 32 MB RAM
* 450 MB free HD space
* 4X CD-ROM drive

[b]Recommended:[/b]
* Pentium II 233 MHz
* 64 MB RAM
* 12 MB VRAM (Voodoo II or other AGP 2x 3D GPU)
* 1 GB free HD space
* 32X CD-ROM drive
labelimagesubject
Doom 3  id Software2004Note! Activision worked only as distributor for Doom 3, not publisher.***Science has unlocked the gates to the unknown, and now only one man stands between Hell and Earth. A Sci-Fi horror masterpiece, Doom 3 is like nothing you've ever experienced. Dramatic storyline, pulse-pounding action, incredible graphics, and revolutionary technology combine to draw you into the most frightening and gripping first person gaming experience ever created.

[i]Terrifying atmosphere[/i]
Never before seen detail with real-time lighting and shadows

[i]Disturbingly lifelife[/i]
Real-world physics, killer AI and 5.1 surround sound

[i]Fight for your life[/i]
Battle in team or deathmatch-based modes
[Box blurb]***Comes on 3 CDs.

EAN-13: [code]5030917024399[/code]***[b]missing images:[/b] interesting and clear main/cover image to replace the current low resolution one***Latest version: [url=ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/doom3/win32/]1.3.1[/url] (as of 2006-12-14)***You take up the role of nameless marine come to UAC Mars research base as a replacement to fill up the diminishing security forces on site. You're initially greeted by bleak residents of the Mars base and the uptight workforce of the place and are quickly pushed to your first assignment. And your arrival could not have been on worse time, as the conditions rapidly deteriorate from then on into an invasion by demonic forces and a darker plot brewing behind it.

---
Personally I think the game is quite good, and the major criticism from others seems to have been about the extremely dark setting (lack of lighting), but how many horror games do you see in brightly lit environs that still manage to scare you? I doubt any. Creep you out by weirdness, perhaps, but not scare you.

The only gripe I have about the game is that it relies all too much on scripted sequences to scare you, and the mob A.I. seems to be a bit too straightforward to give much challenge as it's quite easy to figure out and once that's done, most situations are ridiculously easy to handle, especially with the virtually infinite ammo you have (not that that's much a surprise as the place _is_ weapons research and manufacturing facility on top of everything else).***[b]Minimum:[/b]
[*] Windows 2000 or XP
[*] Pentium IV 1.5 GHz or Athlon XP 1500+ CPU
[*] 384 MB RAM
[*] 64 MB VRAM (Radeon 8500 or GeForce 3)
[*] 8X CD-ROM drive
[*] 2.2 GB free HD space
[*] soundcard
[*] mouse
[*] keyboard***[spoiler=Show partial access code list;Hide code list][b]Syntax:[/b]
[code]locked object : code [lock location] [code found from][/code]

Listed in order of encountering the locked object

Reception & Marine HQ
Combat Prep : 584 [Marine HQ] [Bill Tyson's PDA near the location on second visit to Marine HQ]
Locker #001 : 396 [Maintenance] [Kitchen, Adam's PDA] – automatically opened and emptied on return trip if not opened by player
Locker #023 : 531 [Energy Stab. Unit] [Baston's PDA right next to it]
??? Possible missing code for something here around this portion of the game?
Locker #017 : 347 [Infirmary] [Caseon's PDA found right next to it]

Alpha Labs (no backtracking)
Locker #013 : 586 [Alpha Labs Hallway] [Dorweiler's PDA found right next to it]
martianbuddy : 0508 [North Hallway] [Moses' PDA found right next to it]

Alpha Labs Sector 1
Locker #009 : 752 [?] [Berger's PDA in nearby room]

Alpha Labs Sector 2
Locker #038 : 409 [MFS Compressor] [Chin's PDA in Engineering Security Checkpoint]
Locker #039 : 102 [Coolant Control Junction] [Connors' PDA in MFS Compressor]

Alpha Labs Sector 3
Locker #047 : 123 [Hazardous Materials Lift] [Lamia's PDA in Hazardous Waste Disposal]
Locker #048 : 123 [Coolant Monitoring] [Lamia's PDA in Hazardous Waste Disposal]
Locker #049 : 123 [EFR Staging Room 1B] [Lamia's PDA in Hazardous Waste Disposal]

Alpha Labs Sector 4
door : ? [Reactor Junction 1] [???; Unlocked if you free the scientist in the previous room]
Locker #064 : 651 [?] [Nelson's PDA]

Enpro Plant
Locker #063 : 972 [Power Core Access] [Chasar's PDA right next to it]
Plasma Storage : 734 [Maintenance 3] [Hammer's PDA in same large room]

Central Communications Tower
Locker #054 : 246 [Security Office] [Wolfe's PDA in Comm Systems]

Waste Recycling 2
Locker #003 : 483 [Monorail Access] [Sadowayj's PDA in Central Maintenance, Waste Recycling 1, and Johnson's PDA in Main Environment Control]

Monorail
Locker #003 : Open [Recycling Boarding Plat.] [None needed]
Monorail Airlock : 826 [Site 2 Transfer Area] [Ross' PDA in Site 2 Transfer Area]
Locker #054 : 142 [Site 2 Transfer Area] [Hollies' PDA right next to it]

Locker #078 : 364 [Delta Checkpoint Storage] [Cullen's PDA in Monorail Security Checkpoint]
Locker #079 : 364 [Delta Checkpoint Storage] [Cullen's PDA in Monorail Security Checkpoint]

Delta Labs 1
Locker #210 : 298 [Storage Room 21-D] [Price's PDA in Delta Entryway]

Delta Labs 2
Locker #112 : 538 [Records Office] [Cinder's PDA in Delta Ops Administration]
Locker #113 : Open [Records Office] [None needed]
M. Abrams office : 931 [Delta Security Junction] [Abrams' PDA in Kaczynski's room in Alpha Labs 4]
Locker #116 : 972 [Delta Security] [Terminal right next to it]
Locker #114 : 715 [Operations Server Room] [Post-it note on the side of the locker]
Locker #115 : Open [Operations Server Room] [None needed]

Delta Labs 2b
Locker #103 : 259 [Maintenance Corridor] [Erikson's PDA right next to it]
Locker #216 : 624 [Specimen Research Lab] [Michael's dialog just before]
Locker #217 : 624 [Specimen Research Lab] [Michael's dialog just before]
Locker #213 : 371 [Stasis Transfer Control] [Stemmon's PDA in Maintenance Area 4]
Locker #666 : 372 [Analysis Control] [Post-it note next to the locker numpad]

Storage 07 : 725 [Central Processing] [McNeil's PDA in Technical Director's Office nearby]
Martian Buddy : 0508 [Secure Storage] [Moses' PDA found in Alpha Labs]
Level 3 Access : 463 [Central Processing] [McNeil's PDA in Technical Director's Office nearby]

Delta Labs 3
Locker #317 : 841 [Terminal Office Storage] [Cerano's PDA in Lower Terminal Office]
Locker #386 : 836 [T1 Access] [Lee's PDA in Chamber 1 Control]
Locker #387 : 836 [T1 Access] [Lee's PDA in Chamber 1 Control]

Delta Labs 4
Locker #104 : 579 [Delta4 Security] [Downing's PDA in Delta4 Junction 2, also a terminal nearby]

CPU Complex
Locker #452 : 571 [Entrance Checkpoint] [Jackson's PDA in Delta Main Lobby in Delta before entering CPU Complex]
Lab A : 626 [Main Entrance Hall] [Bates' PDA in Security Monitoring, also seen through a security monitor nearby]
Locker #669 : 468 [Lab A Upper Floors] [Haskell's PDA in Lab A ???]
Locker #009 : Open [Lab A Upper Floors] [None needed]
[/spoiler]
The code listing will be completed when I bother to, which likely won't be anytime soon.
labelimagesubject
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion  2K Games;Bethesda Softworks (Bethesda Game Studios)2006Oblivion is set during the Third Era, six years after the events of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, although it is not a direct sequel to it or any other game. The game is set in Cyrodiil—a province of Tamriel, the continent on which all the games in the series have so far taken place.

The story begins with the player imprisoned in a cell for an unknown crime. Emperor Uriel Septim VII, accompanied by Imperial bodyguards known as the Blades, arrives in the prison, fleeing from assassins who have murdered the emperor's three sons and are now targeting him. The emperor and the Blades reveal that the player's jail cell contains a secret entrance to a part of the city's sewer that functions as an escape route. Pardoned by the emperor, the player follows the group into the sewer, where they come under attack by assassins. The blade captain is cut down during the fighting that ensues. Knowing he is destined to die by the hands of the assassins, Uriel Septim entrusts the player with the Amulet of Kings, worn by the Septim emperors of Tamriel, and orders the player to take it to a man named Jauffre, the grandmaster of the Blades, at Weynon Priory. Immediately afterward, one of the assassins kills the emperor. The player escapes the sewer and heads out into the open world of Cyrodiil.***
[100]***
[12]***[b]Add-ons:[/b] (DLC)
* Knights of the Nine
* Horse Armor
* Frostcrag
* Battlehorn Castle
* Mehrune's Razor
* Orrery
* Thieves' Den
* Vile Lair (Deepscorn Hollow)
* Spell Tomes

[i]Shivering Isles[/i] is also DLC but adds ~30 hours of gameplay and is considered an actual expansion rather than minor add-on.***[b]Performance optimization:[/b]
1) In [code]Oblivion.ini[/code] set [code]iMinGrassSize=130[/code] (default: 80), this makes grass more sparse (the grass is mostly CPU intensive).
2) Disable HDR and use only Bloom effect (HDR in Oblivion is very hackish anyway). In most other games HDR doesn't cause much performance issues nor looks as garish as it does in Oblivion.
3) In [code]Oblivion.ini[/code] set [code]bDSoundHWAcceleration=0[/code] (default: 1, eanbled) if sounds are strange.

Anything else is just choosing right quality vs speed trade-off with video settings.

[b]Crashes:[/b]
4) In case of random crashes, try running the game on single core.

[b]Other:[/b]
5) There are plenty of user made mods that make the game look prettier, but this is usually accomplished with higher polycount models and larger textures, so if you have trouble running the game as is, don't even dream of it. Not that the performance is any issue for hardware people are transitioning to now.***?? 2007? --- Game of the Year (GOTY) edition with [game=#161048]Shivering Isles[/game] and [game=#159888]Knights of the Nine[/game] expansions.
INT 2009-06-16 on Steam, by Bethesda Softworks (lang: eng) --- GOTY edition, includes Knights of the Nine and the Shivering Isles expansions.***Oblivion, when it still wasn't out in the light, held my hopes of redeeming the errors done in Morrowind for the series, but woe it was not to be so. Oblivion is much like Morrowind, except they ruined the beast races' looks even more (though I kinda like it they chose not to use digitigrade legs for them instead of vainly trying to get them to work like they tried in Morrowind - it was a horrible sight if you don't know).

Anyways, Oblivion did have many improvements over Morrowind, the graphic mood isn't as happy as in Morrowind, but still needs work to reach what it was In Daggerfall to really suit my taste (Battlespire and Redguard had the mood right, too). The graphic side really had gained some improvement (mostly just tech eyecandy), except the land still looks like it's made of bent plastic like in Morrowind.

Unsurprisingly the AI seems to have received extremely little attention, with the opponents blindly rushing in at you or blasting from afar with little regard to tactics or anything else than to attack and.. well.. attack. The last time I saw AI this weak was in Serious Sam, but that game didn't really need it. Still, You'd have expected Oblivion to have something more advanced but no, it seems they ignored it completely.

It's also sad that they still rely on level-scaling the opponents to keep the "challenge" up, but that makes the world seem ridiculous since everything becomes tougher with you. So, in the end, you don't kick the ass out of those pesky rats any more easily then than you did when you just started out of the prison, which leaves room to question, what is the leveling there really for? It seems as if you leveling up means the world is becoming more and more dangerous simply because _you_ are becoming better (by around level 20 pretty much every bandit and God knows what is wearing full Daedric armour and weapons all enchanted to the brink with who knows what), raising curious questions about what your character really is to cause such grand change in the order of things.

Your actions still go largely unnoticed by others and have little impact on things that you can do, making one wonder what they really did for the series. The story goes on, the series gets better tech, but the gameplay stays the same crappy self from year to year.

If they ever decide to make fifth chapter, well... if it looks like nothing's changed from this for the better, then my hope for the series will be gone for good.***Game links:

[[link:http://www.tessource.net/ The Elder Scrolls Source (mods)]]
[[link:http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/ Planet Elder Scrolls (mods)]]
[[link:http://timeslip.chorrol.com/obmm_download.html Oblivion Mod Manager]]
[[link:http://jorgeoscuro.googlepages.com/home Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul]]
[[link:http://www.tescreens.be/oblivionmodwiki/index.php/Cosmetic_Compilation Cosmetic Compilation (mod for making better looking characters)]]
[[link:http://korana.elricm.com/eshme_bodies.htm Eshme's Bodies (better bodies)]]
[[link:http://btmod.beider.org/ BTmod (better UI)]]
[cjlee001]
labelimagesubject
Alone in the Dark  Atari;Akella (Eden Games;Hydravision Entertainment)2008Latest version: retail***THEY SAID CENTRAL PARK WAS FOR THE PEOPLE... THEY LIED.

Central Park was not built as a haven for the people of New York, but for something else entirely. Now the truth can no longer be contained.

In one apocalyptic night, Edward Carnby must fight the unimaginable to reveal the earth-shattering secret of Central Park.

Intense story: Told in thrilling episodes of action, plot twists and cliff-hangers
Improvise to survive: Use your imagination to create devastating new weapons
Exhilarating gameplay: Blockbuster action, tense exploration, dangerous driving, vicious fights
Pyromania: Play with fire but don't get burned
Never Get Stuck: DVD-style chapter select lets everyone reach the game's climax

NEW YORK WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN.
[Box blurb]***UPC: [code]742725273887[/code]***[b]Minimum:[/b]
* Windows XP w/ SP2 or Vista
* Pentium D 2.6 GHz or Athlon X2 3800+
* 1 GB RAM
* 7.7 GB HD space

[b]Recommended[/b]
* 2.2 GHz Core 2 CPU
* 2 GB RAM***This is the most bugged game I've seen in ages, and have to wonder how they manage to sell any copies of it out at all.

Besides that, the concepts and gameplay elements they've invented up are quite refreshing, but don't do much in the light of the bugs that prevent you from enjoying it.

After crashing or otherwise exhibiting bugs, it is good idea to exit the game and delete Alone_Data_DFE folder and possibly drm_dyndata_*.dll file in the system temp folder. Removing these seems to at least temporarily fix any bugging, until Eden Games releases a patch for the issues.***EU 2008-06-20
NA 2008-06-24
RU 2008-06-?? by Akella (possibly only distribution)
labelimagesubject
Ghostbusters: The Video Game Vivendi (Terminal Reality)2009Who ya gonna call?
The Ghostbusters are back for an all new adventure! With Manhattan overrun again by supernatural creatures, gamers take the role of a new recruit joining the famous Ghostbusters team. Equipped with a variety of unique equipment and gadgets, players hunt, fight and wrangle a wide range of ghosts in an all-new battle to save New York City from its latest paranormal plague.

THE AUTHENTIC GHOSTBUSTERS GAME EXPERIENCE - Delivering a special gaming experience to the tremendous Ghostbusters fan base around the world, Ghostbusters™: The Video Game features the original cast from Columbia Pictures' classic Ghostbusters films, including Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson - together again for the first time in over 20 years. Supporting the original Ghostbusters crew are the talents of Annie Potts, Brian Doyle Murray and William Atherton.
UNIQUE GHOST BUSTING ACTION - Like the films before it, Ghostbusters™: The Video Game is all-new classic adventure with Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis returning to the helm to script and create a new storyline that leads gamers through the trials and tribulations of the world's leading paranormal ghost busting team. Players experience a variety of frightening new ghosts, even some based on ideas from Aykroyd and Ramis that never made it into the original feature films.
EQUIPMENT, GADGETS & ENEMIES - Ghostbusters™: The Video Game features never seen before ghost hunting, wrangling and trapping game mechanics with upgradeable gadgets. Gamers can wear ghosts down into a weakened state with the Proton Pack's Blast Stream and use the Capture Stream to wrangle them into the trap, execute different strategic tactics with the new Slime Tether and Stasis Stream, and scan and analyze targets using like the P.K.E. Meter and Paragoggles.***US 2009-06-16 on Steam
labelimagesubject
permalink