"Judge Dredd..." is the first result of Rebellion's purchase of the 2000AD comic catalogue. There's such a wealth of beautifully realised characters, plot, action, suspense, comedy and drama held within this comic book institution that, given the state of technology and prevalence of freeform city-based titles in 2003, surely nothing much could go wrong. Surely. Story is little dumb: The Psi Judges of Mega-City One have predicted that a plague will ravage the city, something that seems to go hand in hand with the sudden outbreak of vampires in the city. Judge Dredd - the rock hard, square-jawed, law-enforcing legend - takes it upon himself to launch an investigation into locating the source of all the vampire action. Cue eleven chapters of watered down Halo on a budget. You set off as Dredd into the dank streets, issuing the odd warning to common criminals, waiting for them to get on their knees so that you can handcuff them and pass Judgement. Some perps will put up more of a fight than others, but only when you're fired at should deadly force be employed. Assault on an unarmed or unthreatening individual will decrease Dredd's LawMeter, which measures how adept you are at upholding the law and affects your Judge rank at the end of each chapter. Rebellion's Asura engine seems to have the potential to render some genuinely impressive visuals, but its deployment in Dredd Vs. Death varies from the impressive to the downright awful. Firstly, the mixture of comic-style textures on the Judges doesn't sit well with the attempt to portray gritty realism in some areas of the city. The city itself is for the most part well constructed with its grimy exteriors and driving rain, and it conveys a proper sense of scale. Some of the interiors, however, lack the detail required to make the scenery particularly believable; at points it's clear that Rebellion were struggling with exactly how they wanted to present Dredd and his environment. Still, credit where credit's due. The atmosphere does thicken from time to time, particularly in anticipation of Dredd's confrontation with the Dark Judges in the latter stages of the game. But towards the end of the game, Rebellion suddenly gained the ability to strike genuine fear in my heart as the battle with Judge Mortis, the disease-spreading deathmonger, approached. Multiplayer mode features an impressive complement of different modes, many of which are variations on already established FPS game types. Blockwar is a King of the Hill mode, with players attempting to inhabit specific areas for as long as possible. Bounty Hunter puts one player in Dredd's shoes with the rest hunting him down, and the player who manages to kill him fills those shoes, the twist being that players are only able to score as Dredd. There's also Informant mode, straight out of Counter-Strike, with one team of players attempting to escort an unarmed player to a safe house, as well as deathmatch, team deathmatch and even more besides. One particular mode which grabbed my attention was Vampire: each player's health steadily decreases on its own, and can only be replenished by hurting or killing other players. It's an interesting twist that increases the tension and frantic action of an otherwise regular deathmatch game. Frankly I wasn't expecting the best from Dredd Vs. Death and there are many better shooters but if you are fan of Dredd comic you can add onep oint to score :-). I would give 2,5/5 but since tre is no half-points let's make it 3/5.
Empire Earth is real time strategy created by Stainless Steel Studios, company founded by Rick Goodman who ealier made awasome Age of Empires. Game has one extraordinary feature that ano other doesn't: huge lifespan and history of a humanity (500 000 years of past, present and future of it is portrayed in the game). You can carry various missions that can lead to important historic events and no matter which era in game you choose to play; details remain truthful to real events that happened in the history. More than 200 types of units you find as go through the game is also worth mentionig. While advancing further into game units can by advanced with special points gathered durring missions. Youc can then distribute those points to units or technologies you wish to improve. Various features must be taken into account here. First and foremost, the player has to know exactly where to place which units and how to use their powers in the best possible way. Main disadvantage of game is sometimes pathfindg. In most situations, your units will appear rather confused and disoriented, instead of reacting normally to their instructions. I've noticed that the ships especially have peculiar ways of responding to a given command. For instance, you order a few battle-ships to keep the assigned formation and then you hit a certain target - consequently, they loose their formation and it takes them a long time to finally aim and fire at their objective. Land units take action more efficiently, even though they do tend to take unusual paths according to their own liking. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there's a nice level editor that gives you the opportunity to create new missions and even new civilizations. Additionally, the multiplayer has one great option -- players can choose any nation from any period of human history, which means you can try out German plains from WW II and employ them against fierce Russian futuristic tanks (and throw in a couple of medieval British Knights - it will be a blast). Truthfully, there are a lot of good things about Empire Earth that simply cannot be described, but that are really fun to experience. In the end, all I can say is that the variety of features, in terms of gameplay, have shown all the essentials of an excellent real-time strategy game. Of course, if it weren't for the awkward size of the models and the glitches that occur with pathfinding, the game might've been given a higher score.
I don't which off I should start. I love this game! It's IMO one of the best non-base building RTS'es released. I still have gold edition release with mousepad. When games was realeased, presented very refreshing aproach to RTS genre. Developed by Massive Entertainment, which by the way produced second of my favourite strategies, World in Conlict, game was released almost ten years ago but games is still fresh. Producing the game, Massive focused totally on element of combat in RTS genre so you don't have to gather resources or build anything. Mission must be finished with units you have got from start. Graphical side of game is awasome and even today is defending itself very good. Nice textures of terrain, very good detailed player's units. With good modelled fog and nice lense flares from sun games looks like real terrain photos. As one of the first games used Transform & Lightening found on first (and current of course:-)) GeForce cards. Units controlling in game presented also fresh approach at time games was released. Units are pre-grouped in squads which simplifies menagement. Basicly thera are 3 main types of units: aerodynes, terradynes and infantry. Each main type of units has sub-types like fighters & bombers, scout terradynes or heavy ones, combined with different types of chasis (hoover, caterpillar track). Each mission is started by brifing with 'talking heads' dialogue, presenting objectives and most important followed selecting units for the mission by you which are arriving in one or more dropships. Some player may think "I bring heaviest terradynes and the mission is mine!" Sorry, it's not. Few Aerodynes end your units end in big fire... So wise management is advised, mission succes and their easiness depends on units your choose... Mutliplayer is also are where we must congrat Massive for their job. Because you have limited number of units that are thrown to battlefield via dropships gameplay and strategyis similar to shooters. Multiplyer in game is client-server based. Teamplay also avaiable. What can I say for finish.. Again I love this game. It's absolutely marvellous. I bought it an hour ago instantly when I saw it was released on GOG and I had jaws wide open little moment :-). Can't wait to finish this review and start playing. Now I hope there is chance for Homeworld in GOG cat. too... Establishing battlefield control. Standby...
Next to Destroyer Command SH 2 was mi first sim I played on PC. Silent Hunter series always keeps high standard and this is best example. Game merges advanatages of it's precursor with high technology standards adequate to beginning of current decade. In game you are captain of U-boat and will fight for glory od the III Reich. Durring work on game developers had great advisor, german submarine ace Erich Topp. When games was released there wasn't any competition for her. Silent Hunter 2 was king of marine simulations. Oustanding graphic, dynamic campaign, single historcal missions (like Gunter Priens raid on Scapa Flow and sinking Royal Oak) oppnents with godd AI, great movie sequences and multimedia presentations. You can't say you know SH series without play in Silent Hunter 2.
I found this title some time ago when I was looking for 'tiny' nice game for playing between normal 'serious' ones. From time to time everyone needs to play something simple and little sily. 'Neighbours...' fits this category very well. If you wan't nice brake from large serious titles it's 'must have'. Do you have little brake in work; neighbourn you don't like or are sometimes tired of all these fallouts etc? This games is 'must have' if answer is yes for any of previous questions.
