Publisher: Playlogic
Developer: Akella
Genre: Computer Role-Playing
Release Date: Sep 12, 2006 (more)
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Alcohol Reference, Mild Language, Tobacco Reference, Violence
Number of Players: 1 Player
Number of Online Players: 16 Online

The life of a pirate must have been pretty rough, and being rough is one thing Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales certainly nails down pat. This convoluted, buggy game greatly overextends itself, presenting an open-ended role-playing experience that combines ship-to-ship combat and on-foot exploration throughout the Caribbean islands during the golden age of piracy. This game might as well be a sequel to the developers' previous piracy games, including 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean and 2000's Sea Dogs, so it's a shame that the broader, more ambitious scope of this latest take on the formula just leads to more problems.

Much like Akella's previous games, in Age of Pirates you play as a freebooter looking for fame and fortune on the high seas. You can choose to play as either a male or female character, and you start off with a modest ship and crew, and may then proceed to go wherever you like in the Caribbean. Whether you either take on missions for the various European nations that have set up camp on the isles or plunder their merchant vessels is pretty much up to you. By completing various quests and sinking or successfully boarding enemy ships, you'll gain levels of experience that let you customize your sea captain's abilities. You also need to be mindful of your ship's crew--their health, morale, and salaries--and may employ officers to help you navigate and fight. There's a lot to think about and to do in Age of Pirates. If only it all worked as well as could reasonably be expected.

The game gets off to a worrisome start by presenting you with a screen dense with different gameplay options, such as nation progress rate, encounter frequency, sailing settings, and simplified sea artificial intelligence. There's also an overall difficulty option, but it's hard not to presume that a game presenting this fine a level of customization right off the bat is a game that isn't trying very hard to deliver a well-balanced experience. Indeed, Age of Pirates often feels aimless, and the simple text-based quests you'll be given are hardly incentive enough to hold interest. The character-leveling system is probably the most compelling reason to keep playing, but the longer you play, the more the game seems to unravel. Open-ended games ought to reward experimentation and exploration, but this one is almost as likely to crash on you as you keep doing things your way.

The pacing and quality of presentation in Age of Pirates are also all over the place. You can tell most of the effort went into creating nice-looking ships, water, and weather effects, because the close-up sailing sequences look very pretty. Most of the rest of the game just looks bad, though, and the clunky interface is unclear and hard to get used to. Bombastic music flares up when your ship gets into a fight, making these deliberate battles feel rushed. While you can initially adjust settings to affect the ship-to-ship combat, these battles wind up being long, slow slogs regardless of your choices. This may be relatively realistic, but you're left with little to do but turn and switch ammo types while your ships wage war. To help speed things along, there's a good chance you'll want to try to move in and board your enemy's vessel, especially since that's the easiest way to get yourself a bigger, better ship (why buy one when you can take one?). Boarding attempts culminate in a choppy, ridiculous action sequence in which you'll hack at the enemy crew and its captain. These battles haven't changed much since Akella's previous pirate games, and by now they come across as completely substandard.

It's too bad so much of this game feels half-baked, since there are many different details you might otherwise want to sink your teeth into in Age of Pirates. Ships may be upgraded with different types of hulls, sails, and cannons, which all carry certain advantages and disadvantages that force you to make interesting trade-offs (such as between durability and maneuverability). Improving your captain's tactics rating lets you command larger squadrons of vessels, if you prefer strength in numbers. And if you're feeling bold, you can attempt to attack and capture a colony by battling its defensive fortresses, mopping up guards on foot, and even ransoming off the former governor. As you play, your character's overall reputation and his or her standing with the different Caribbean factions will change. Leveling up also lets you choose from a variety of special abilities that let you bolster your captain's abilities as a sailor, a fighter, a leader, a negotiator, and more.

The back of the box also asserts that there's a multiplayer mode for up to 16 players, including four modes: deathmatch, team deathmatch, defend the convoy, and capture the fort. However, we could find literally no one playing any of these modes online, and there's barely so much as a mention of the multiplayer modes in the game's 60-page manual. Assuming these modes are fully functional, they still probably wouldn't be much fun, considering the ship-to-ship combat in the game is especially dull when you strip out all the role-playing and boarding elements.

Age of Pirates is comparable to Sid Meier's Pirates! from 2004, yet while that game distilled down the concept of being a high-seas swashbuckler to its essentials, this newer one drowns in the details. The game just feels rushed and dated, and it comes across as if the developers bit off a lot more than they could chew. It's understandable that in the wake of Pirates!, a similar game would try to differentiate itself by providing many more gameplay features. But to say that the quality of the execution of this game leaves a lot to be desired would be putting it nicely.
By Greg Kasavin, GameSpot

Minimum System Requirements
System: Pentium 4 1.8 GHz or equivalent
Video Memory: 128 MB
Hard Drive Space: 4000 MB

Recommended System Requirements
System: P4 2.5 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 1024 MB

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Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix - PC Game For Download

Publisher: EA Games
Developer: EA Games
Genre: Fantasy Action Adventure
Release Date: Jun 25, 2007 (more)
ESRB: EVERYONE 10+
ESRB Descriptors: Fantasy Violence
Resolution: Widescreen
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Number of Players: 1 Player

The Harry Potter series of books has captured both the minds of children and adults alike. The movies haven't disappointed either and are amongst the highest grossing films of all time. For some reason, the video games that have been released alongside the movies haven't been able to reach the same level of quality that the movies and books have achieved. The latest game, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, continues that trend. There's a faithful re-creation of the Hogwarts campus to explore, but once you've seen the sights, there's not much else to do. Even the most diehard Potter fans will grow tired of seeing the grand staircase as they return from their umpteenth fetch quest.

Order of the Phoenix follows the story of the book and the movie of the same name. After narrowly avoiding expulsion for using magic in front of a muggle, Harry finds that Hogwarts' new defense against the dark arts teacher seems to have it out for him. To make matters worse, Voldemort is threatening to rear his ugly mug again, and Harry fears that the school will be unable to defend itself. With the help of Ron and Hermione, Harry rallies the students together to form Dumbledore's Army in an effort to ready them for a fight against the dark lord. This all makes perfect sense if you've read the book, but the story's exceedingly difficult to follow if you haven't read it because vast segments of the story are told via brief full-motion video cutscenes and newspaper clippings. It's easy to understand how a three-hour movie might have to leave bits and pieces out, but it's puzzling that an eight-hour game can't tell even the most basic aspect of the story.

Though the game's box says you'll get to play as Sirius Black and Dumbledore, you do so for less than five minutes, so you'll spend nearly the entire game controlling Harry. Ron and Hermione will be by your side the whole time offering hints on where to go or what to do next. You'll also encounter every recognizable character from the Harry Potter universe along your journey. The game starts off with a tutorial where you'll learn basic spells like wingardium leviosa (levitation), reparo (repair an object), accio (pull an object toward you), and depulso (push an object away) by helping people fix broken dishes, pack their suitcases, and move furniture--not exactly riveting stuff. On the PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation, 3, and Xbox 360, you cast spells by pressing a button to point your wand and moving the right analog stick in a specific pattern.

Rotating the stick clockwise will cast reparo, pressing down twice will cast accio, and pushing forward twice will cast depulso. You can also use the keyboard and mouse on the PC and this works fine. On the Wii, you'll hold the remote vertically then tilt it forward to cast depulso. To perform wingardium leviosa, you'll raise both the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk to lift the object then move the controllers around to maneuver the object. This works surprisingly well, and it makes it feel as if you are actually casting spells, which goes a long way toward making the game more enjoyable. The PS3 does use the Sixaxis' motion controls, but tilting and twisting the controller as you hold it in your lap doesn't add much to the experience.

Later in the game, you'll learn combat spells. These are cast in the same way as noncombat spells and mostly use the same patterns. But there will only be a few instances where you'll need to perform these combat spells because there's hardly any dueling in the game. This is probably a good thing because the combat isn't very good, and it's tough to tell if you're actually hitting someone. Even during the last fight, you just stand there casting the same spell over, waiting for a cutscene to signify the end of the battle.

Once you've learned some basic spells, it's off to Hogwarts, which is faithfully re-created in a game for the first time. The Hogwarts campus is absolutely huge, which is both a blessing and a curse. Fans should really get a kick out of seeing the grand staircase in motion and candles floating above the tables in the great hall, as well as sneaking into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. But traversing back and forth across such a large area quickly becomes tiresome. Once you find the proper passwords, you can use the passages behind paintings as shortcuts, but they don't cut that much time off the journey. Another problem is the in-game navigation system. You're given a map that lists all of the different areas on campus, as well as the location of each person you need to find. Once you've highlighted the person or place you're looking for, footprints will appear on the ground to lead the way. Unfortunately, the footprints are black, so they're difficult to see; they don't appear far enough in front of you, so you're constantly forced to stop to wait for them to appear; and the camera will often switch angle midstride, so you don't know which way you're facing.

You've got a huge campus and healthy number of spells at your disposal, so you'll no doubt be doing all sorts of awesome things in incredible, mystical places, right? No. You spend most of the game running around trying to inform everyone as to the whereabouts of the room of requirement. You'll pick a character on the map, follow the footprints, and then tell people about the meeting place. In almost every single case, they'll have a reason for why they can't go. Of course, you've got to help them. This means you'll run all over Hogwarts collecting items, moving benches, fixing things, and helping people with their homework. This is how you spend the entire game. It's literally one fetch quest after another. Being able to pick the quest you want gives the illusion that you've got the freedom to do what you want, but the game is extremely linear in that there's only one way to accomplish any given objective. And sometimes you'll be performing the same exact task over again, such as when you're helping to disable the school's intercom by moving benches then pouring a potion into the speakers. You do this, not once, not twice, but five or six times; each time in a different room.

Performing one menial task after another would be bad enough on its own, but other issues conspire to make it worse. The game does a decent job of showing you where people and places are, but once you've met with someone, you're quite often on your own when it comes to figuring out how to help him or her. For example, at one point in the game, you must help a kid find five talking gargoyles. Now, you've encountered several talking gargoyles to this point, but for some reason, you can't tell the kid this and you must find the gargoyles again. Not only are you doing something you've already done, but the map doesn't show you where these gargoyles are, so you're forced to scour the entire campus in an effort to locate them.

When you're not playing the role of messenger boy, you'll spend much of your time cleaning up Hogwarts by putting statues, paintings, and urns back together. You can also search behind curtains for giant chess pieces, move blocks to find hidden plaques, light torches, and even sweep floors. These tasks are actually pleasant diversions for a short while, and you can unlock extras by performing them. But the tasks speak poorly for the game as a whole when sweeping the floor is a highlight. Another way to pass the time is to play chess, exploding snap, and gobstones. Gobstones (think marbles) and exploding snap (pick out matching pairs of cards) are simple but fun. Chess plays similar to Battle Chess and is actually quite engaging--if you've played chess before. The game will show you the moves that each piece can make, but there's no tutorial mode, which may leave many younger players clueless.

Visually, Order of the Phoenix is all over the place. Many areas of Hogwarts, such as the grand staircase or great hall, look spectacular and are very detailed. However, many of the hallways look the same and are largely empty. Combat spells look really cool when you cast them, but there are so few duels that you'll rarely get to enjoy seeing the spells in action. At first glance, character models look just like their movie counterparts and are quite nice. But once you see them in motion, you'll notice that they all look kind of like zombies. Things are even worse in the cutscenes that utilize the in-game engine. Characters stare blankly off into the distance, they face the wrong way, their mouths often don't move when they talk, and they'll appear then disappear from view for no apparent reason. The PS3, 360, and PC versions look the best. Other than lower quality in-game cutscenes and some nasty aliasing, the PS2 and Wii versions hold their own, though the PS2's frame rate is pretty iffy at times. Having the actors from the films voice their characters in the game goes a long way toward immersing you in the experience, even with the shoddy cutscenes and script. The familiar musical score is here and suits the game perfectly, which kind of makes you wonder why it was used so little.

It's hard to imagine that the video game version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will appeal to anyone. Older fans of Harry Potter will enjoy exploring Hogwarts for a while, but they'll soon be bored to tears by the low level of difficulty and the tedious objectives. The younger set will also get a kick out of seeing the sights and will appreciate the forgiving difficulty, as well as the simplicity of the tasks at hand. But they'll quickly grow tired of using their favorite character to perform a seemingly endless parade of chores. If being the most famous wizard in the world were this boring, there wouldn't have been more than one book.

System Requirments
Optical Drive: DVD-ROM
CPU Speed: 1.0 GHz
Disk Space: 2.0 GB
Display: AGP Video Card With 64 MB+ and NVIDIA GeForce 3+ or ATI Radeon 8500+
RAM 256MB
Operating System Compatibility: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/VISTA, Mac OS X

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GTR2

Publisher: 10tacle Studios
Developer: SimBin
Genre: GT / Street Racing
Release Date: Sep 29, 2006 (more)
ESRB: EVERYONE
Special Controllers: Steering Wheel
Online Modes: Competitive
Number of Players: 1-2
Number of Online Players: 24 Online
DirectX Version: v9.0c

The PC racing simulation category isn't what it once was. While the PC used to be home to a big variety of classic, in-depth racing sim series, the ever-increasing power of game consoles and the promise of more sales have led many would-be racing developers to abandon the PC altogether. Consider SimBin's GTR 2, the sequel to 2005's GTR FIA Racing, a hearkening back to the good old days of sim racing. It's an expansive and challenging sequel to one of the best racing games of last year and, at its price, it remains one of the best bargains of the year for the PC.

From a content standpoint, GTR 2 isn't that much different from the original. The game still revolves around GT racing--a compelling mixture of multiclass sports cars from makers such as Ferrari, Porsche, TVR, Saleen, and many more, all competing on a cosmopolitan lineup of real-life tracks from all over the world. Additionally, the driving model, which so authentically captured the thrilling yet often twitchy experience of driving a highly tuned sports car in the original GTR, is even more finely tuned in the sequel. The lion's share of the game's improvements, then, can be seen in the slight planing down of the original game's often steep learning curve.

The first and most obvious way the GTR developers have done this is through the driving school, an expansive tutorial that has seemingly been designed to take you from the ground up--from your first moments in the car to competing tightly with the game's demanding artificially intelligent drivers (or with up to 27 other players via the game's excellent online multiplayer racing). Categories covered in driving school include the basics, such as acceleration and braking, up through cornering and overtaking, and finally, into section-by-section breakdowns of many of the tracks featured in the game. Each category includes a text breakdown that covers the theory behind each racing concept, as well as the specific goal you need to accomplish in order to pass that particular challenge. You can also practice the challenge before an "official" attempt against the ghost car or watch the ghost car's lap to view proper braking or turn-in points, which is essential for some of the trickier challenges. By beating challenges, you unlock a host of restricted-class championships that are graded in difficulty levels; some of the first championships you open are quite easy and serve as an excellent introduction to the kind of intense on-track action that forms the heart of the game. Those new to the series are well served by simply going through the basic tutorials in driving school, unlocking a few championships and competing in a few of these early series. In all, if you go so far as to compete in all 142 challenges found in GTR 2, you'll be well on your way to mastering the fundamentals of driving quickly and have a good idea of how the many tracks found in the game operate.
Once you're done with the tutorials and have built up a heap of early-game confidence, you'll find a number of game modes and options in GTR 2 just waiting to beat you down and bring you back to earth. Open practice and time trial are two good ways to improve your lap time. The inclusion of a color-coded racing line feature similar to that found in Forza Motorsport is a nice touch--though the one found in GTR 2 isn't as dynamic as the feature in Forza. As a result, you'll often find points where you can "fudge" the race line in order to gain a few extra tenths. The same can be said for the turn indicator signs that pop up when turning laps, which also suggest the gear you should be in to attack a particular corner. Many times you can safely ignore the recommended gear in favor of what you know works better in a particular car.

Minimum System Requirements
System: 1.8 GHz Intel Pentium IV or equivalent
RAM: 1024 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB
Hard Drive Space: 1700 MB

Recommended System Requirements
System: 3 GHz Intel Pentium IV or equivalent
RAM: 1024 MB
Video Memory: 256 MB
Hard Drive Space: 1700 MB

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Need For Speed Underground

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Electronic Arts
Genre: GT / Street Racing
Release Date: Nov 17, 2003
ESRB: EVERYONE
ESRB Descriptors: Mild Language, Suggestive Themes Online Modes: Competitive
Number of Players: 1-4

It's hard to talk about an import car racing game without mentioning the movie The Fast and the Furious. The movie put as much of a spotlight on tricked-out cars as it did on its cast, and the resulting effect caused a huge surge of interest in the import racing scene. In the wake of the film, a number of other properties have risen up to try to claim a piece of the lucrative scene as its own. Need for Speed Underground is EA's attempt to get involved, and it's mostly a success.

A driving game is only as good as its handling and physics model. In this respect, Need for Speed Underground does a pretty great job, though it's by no means a realistic simulation--nor is it trying to be. It's definitely been designed with accessibility in mind rather than focusing on realistic simulation aspects. In fact, the game probably controls best with an analog, console-style gamepad. As a result, the game is quite easy to pick up and play, though some portions require a little more finesse than others. Driving with finesse earns you style points in a system similar to the one found in the Project Gotham Racing series for the Xbox, though this one is much more lenient and awards points for the simple acts of powersliding, drafting, and catching air. Style points accumulate regardless of the mode you're playing in, and you can unlock rewards each time the style points meter is filled.

Need for Speed Underground contains a decent-sized car roster. Right off the bat you'll find a Honda Civic, which is one of the more popular rides in the scene. But the inventory doesn't stop there. You'll also find a VW Golf, Acura Integra, Toyota Supra, S2000, Ford Focus, Dodge Neon, Mazda Miata, and a few more. Though the different cars are rated in handling, acceleration, and top speed, in practice the cars don't drive all that differently, especially once you've purchased some upgrades in the career mode.

The import racing scene is heavy on modifying cars with aftermarket parts, and Need for Speed Underground duplicates this aspect pretty well. The car upgrades are broken down into visual and performance upgrades. Performance upgrades come in multiple levels and must be unlocked before you can purchase them. These upgrades include turbocharge, better engines, weight reduction, enhanced braking, computer-chip tuning, nitrous oxide boosts, and so on. The game contains a lot of actual aftermarket brands for its parts, so when you purchase an upgrade, you'll have limited control over which brands you're buying, but the brand makes no difference--all the brand packages perform equally well.

The visual upgrades also have a positive effect on your car. Purchasing spoilers, body kits, replacement hoods, neons, headlights, taillights, or window tinting for your car, or making other major changes to your car's appearance, increases your reputation rating. As your rating gets higher, the multiplier bonus you get on your style points increases, which lets you unlock other rewards more quickly.

The main reward you get for your style point total is access to vinyl stickers for your car. They start out simple, such as racing stripes and designs, but you can eventually put brand stickers from many different aftermarket part and stereo makers all over your car.

The tracks in Need for Speed Underground are well designed, but even though there are well over 20 different tracks in the game, they get pretty repetitive. The game uses the old trick of opening up or closing certain pathways to reconfigure certain sections of a track while using the same sections over and over again. Because of this, you really have to pay attention to your map as you drive to make sure you're prepared to take the right path. The game offers what appears to be a large city, but going off the track will simply reset your car back onto the proper street.
Need for Speed Underground contains a good variety of different races that help keep the action varied, though a lack of unique tracks keeps most races from feeling different from one another. Circuit racing, standard one-shot runs, and knockout-style circuits are all included, and all offer slightly different takes on the plain old race, and drag racing and drift racing change things up nicely. While the initial thought of drag racing--racing in a straight line--may sound pretty boring, the gameplay is quite different here. The steering gets reduced to slot-car-like lane-change control, and your main focus is on shifting properly. A clear RPM meter is displayed on the left side of the screen, and indicators instruct you when to shift. The early drag races are simple, clear races. But the later tracks throw traffic and other obstacles in the mix, forcing you to worry about lane position as much as you worry about shifting.

Drift racing puts you alone on a short, wide track. Time means nothing here. Instead, you'll be graded on how well you can powerslide around turns. Proper use of the emergency brake is key here, though learning how to drift properly isn't very difficult at all. It isn't as exciting as the drag racing, but it makes for a nice change of pace.

Minimum System Requirements
System: Intel Pentium III 700Mhz or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB
Hard Drive Space: 2000 MB

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